


whitesun

by Ryah_Ignis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Beru Whitesun Lives, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 52
Words: 73,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: "There is a small—very small, mind you, because twenty years in the desert haven’t turned him into a krayt dragon—part of Obi-Wan Kenobi that thinks things would be a little bit easier if Beru Lars had burned with her husband.  In his defense, she’s currently barrelling towards him with a blaster leveled between his eyes and murder in hers."Or, the one where Aunt Beru was out running errands when the homestead burned, and everything changes, just a little bit.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker & Beru Whitesun, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 1037
Kudos: 926





	1. binary sunrise

There is a small—very small, mind you, because twenty years in the desert haven’t turned him into a krayt dragon—part of Obi-Wan Kenobi that thinks things would be a little bit easier if Beru Lars had burned with her husband. In his defense, she’s currently barrelling towards him with a blaster leveled between his eyes.

“Step back!” she shouts, voice raw with a pain that Obi-Wan knows all too well.

Luke glances between him, his aunt, and the burnt husk of what had been his home. His Force presence flicks through emotions just as rapidly—relief, at the sight of Beru. Fury at the destruction of his home. Devastation at the loss of his uncle. And yet, simmering under it all, there’s still that burning curiosity, his desire to know even scraps about his father.

Not for the first time, Obi-Wan wishes that Anakin Skywalker really had died on Mustafar. Any stories he tells Luke about his father will be tainted by the smoke and ash.

A blaster bolt strikes the ground mere inches from his feet, spraying sand up on to his robes and interrupting his thoughts.

“Get. Back.”

She’s not shouting anymore, and somehow that’s more intimidating. Well, that, and the fact that she just shot at him, anyway.

With some difficulty, Obi-Wan extracts himself from the tangled web of Luke’s emotions. The boy has been growing stronger every day. More visible, more vulnerable. Maybe getting him to the Alliance and to his sister is the best move after all.

He steps away, his empty hands raised in the air.

“It’s all right—” Luke starts, but Beru doesn’t let him finish.

“Luke!”

With one last look at Obi-Wan, Luke hurries over to her side. Beru manages to pull him into a one-armed hug without wavering with her gun hand for so much as a heartbeat.

“What in the nine hells is going on?”

To her credit, she only allows the still-smoking corpse of her husband to distract her for a moment before her blazing eyes—Obi-Wan can’t help but think of twin suns—lock back on to his.

Luckily, it’s Luke who answers, extracting himself enough from Beru’s tight hold to get the words out.

“Imps,” he says. “They were looking for the droids.”

C-3PO seems to think that this is the appropriate moment to cut in. “Myself and R2-D2 are terribly sorry for your loss, Mistress Beru.”

For a moment, Obi-Wan thinks that Beru is going to put a blaster bolt in the droid’s head. He wouldn’t blame her for it. He’d had the same desire himself many times over the years.

Then, she collects herself. “Thank you.”

They were the very last words that Obi-Wan had expected to hear. He’s beginning to think that his theory that the people of Tatooine were put in the universe solely to confuse him is correct.

“Why did they want the droids?”

Luke again: “Artoo has the plans for a super star destroyer, and he’s supposed to deliver them to the Rebel Alliance.”

Beru assesses the two droids, unimpressed. Then, she turns back to Obi-Wan.

“These plans. It would make the Imps upset to have them delivered to the Alliance, wouldn’t it?”

He thinks that she’s going to tell him that it’s too much of a risk and usher Luke away. And right now, Obi-Wan doesn’t think he has the strength to rip her remaining family away from her. Then, he spots a flash of that durasteel resolve that he’d seen in Luke a few short minutes ago when he’d decided to tag along. No, not durasteel. Sandstone. 

Beru is desert rock, and she’s carved Luke into the same.

“Yes, they would,” Obi-Wan says, unable to be dishonest.

“Good.” She holsters the blaster. “Let’s not wait around for them to find us, then.”

She turns neatly on her heel, making a small divot in the sand. Just as she’s about to stride away, Luke grabs her by the elbow.

“Uncle Owen,” he says, and the small break in his voice reminds Obi-Wan just how young he is.

By Luke’s age, Anakin Skywalker was a general. But Luke was raised as a boy, not a weapon. All Obi-Wan can do is pray that it’ll make the difference.

Beru turns, all the sandstone lines etched into her face crumbling into dust at the sight of her nephew’s expression. She cups Luke’s chin gently before walking back to Owen’s body.

Obi-Wan takes a few steps back to give them room to grieve. Artoo makes a few impatient beeps, and Threepio kicks him in what Obi-Wan supposes is the equivalent of his shin.

He’s been to a few Tatooine funerals over the last two decades, so he knows how they work. Unlike the Core World funerals he’d attended as a Jedi Knight, there is little wasted time. Every moment spent doing something other than work on Tatooine is a moment closer to death or the Hutts. Equally horrible options.

So even though Owen Lars’ funeral is quick, it’s honestly not much shorter than average. Beru and Luke murmer their way through a quick—he can’t quite call it a prayer, because Tatooine doesn’t really do religion—mantra. They’re words to guide Owen to his final destination, wherever that might be.

Obi-Wan’s heart twists. Once upon a time, he’d stood with a hand on nine-year-old Anakin’s shoulder as the boy had spoken the same words for Qui-Gon.

It feels like an echo. A warning, that maybe all he’s doing by setting Luke on this path is orchestrating a way for the Force to repeat itself. He’s certainly played the fool often enough.

He shakes the feeling away.

Much like the Jedi, Tatooine burns their dead. Of course, in this case, there isn’t much left to burn. Beru reaches that conclusion at the same time Obi-Wan does. Her mouth twists. Obi-Wan thinks he understands. The stormtroopers have denied her catharsis.

Instead, she and Luke skip to the final step. Both take a fistful of sand and let it rain down on the body. Neither sheds a tear, although Obi-Wan can’t say he’s surprised. On Tatooine, you don’t waste water. It’s not what the deceased would want.

The entire ritual lasts around three and a half minutes. Then, at last, Beru steps back, her arm looped loosely around Luke’s shoulders. The other stays steady on her holstered blaster.

“Lead on, Kenobi.” she says.

Obi-Wan turns away from the homestead and toward the speeder and Mos Eisley. He doesn't look back, and neither do his companions.

* * *

It figures, Beru thinks, that Owen would manage to have the last word.

Nineteen years ago, when Obi-Wan Kenobi had arrived on their doorstep with a newborn in tow, Owen had urged caution. The fledgling Empire had already learned how to inspire fear. Even on Tatooine, word had spread about the slaughter of the Jedi.

“He’ll be his father’s son,” Owen had argued.

They’d made an odd group. Owen, the sweat of a long day still sticky on his brow. Her, standing beside him with her arms crossed as their uneaten dinner grew cold in the rapidly cooling desert night. Kenobi, bouncing a baby gently in his arms, far more practiced than Beru would have expected from a Jedi Knight. And Luke, wailing every so often throughout the proceedings, despite Kenobi’s attempts to lull him to sleep.

“For all of our sakes,” Kenobi had said in an even graver voice than usual, “I pray he won’t be.”

At the time, the ominousness of the statement had just blended in with the rest of the atmosphere. Now, with his surrogate still smoking a half mile behind them, Beru spares a thought for Luke’s long-dead father. She wonders what Kenobi had meant.

Nineteen years ago, Beru had wanted children. Always had, really, but there was a danger to it on Tatooine. You had to wait for a wet year, one where the mother and child would both have enough to drink. A year when Hutts didn’t decide to collect on their debts.

That very day, they’d filled their first tank of water two weeks ahead of schedule. Even then, Beru hadn’t been naïve enough to believe in signs. But that didn’t mean the galaxy wasn’t trying to nudge her one way or another.

“Owen,” she’d said quietly, reaching out to take his hand. “He doesn’t have anyone else.”

She’d only met Anakin Skywalker the once, but she knew the Jedi weren’t allowed attachments. Weren’t allowed children. So there could be no one, save Obi-Wan Kenobi, who even knew of Luke’s existence.

“What about him?” Owen had groused, though he hadn’t pulled his hand away.

In the split second before Kenobi had managed to force his expression into something neutral, an anxiety that Beru would have never expected to see from a Jedi Knight had crossed his face.

“I want to give him a family,” Kenobi had said at last, that infuriatingly calm expression back in place once more.

Perhaps anticipating the perfect in, he’d held Luke out to Beru. The baby had finally fallen asleep, his reddened skin paling as he calmed. Despite Owen’s warning look, she’d taken him into her arms.

“Are you gonna take him?”

She’d fixed Kenobi with a particularly sharp look that she liked to think even now had cowed him somewhat.

“What?”

“We might live in the Outer Rim, but we’re not stupid,” Owen had answered gruffly before she’d gotten the chance. “We know what your people do. Steal kids away from their parents.”

Beru could tell that he was thinking about Shmi Skywalker, too, and the wistful look that had come over her face whenever she had spoken about her freed son. Owen had always liked her, and Beru had always thought that she’d looked at him like another son.

“There is not a Jedi Order any longer,” Kenobi had said. “Luke will remain with you.”

Beru had glanced Owen’s way, face pleading. “He’s her grandson, Owen.”

Owen had stayed silent a moment too long to refuse. When he’d swiped a hand over his face, she’d known that she’d won.

“Fine. But if we die doing this, Beru, I’m going to haunt him.”

One single traitorous tear trickles down her face at the memory, cleaned away almost immediately by the wind and sand as the speeder’s pace picked up.

He always did get the last word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, the whole of my Star Wars knowledge comes from playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for over a hundred hours as a kid.
> 
> this 'verse is super self-indulgent and also my first foray into Star Wars fic, so hi, I guess :D


	2. sunny farmboy

Somehow, Mos Eisley seems more shady and decrepit every time she sees it. Beru must not be able to keep the distaste off of her face completely, because Luke rolls his eyes like he always does. Mos Eisley is the only gateway to the stars that he’s ever known, which erases its flaws in his eyes.

“This place is going to be crawling with Imps,” Beru says in a low voice as Luke slows the speeder. “Please tell me you've got a plan.”

The little astromech droid beeps unhelpfully—Owen was always better at understanding them—which doesn’t do much to boost her confidence.

“I do,” Kenobi says.

That doesn’t do much to boost her confidence, either. Beru swallows her frustration with his lack of elaboration and tries to think of a way that she can get herself and Luke out of this alive if they’re stopped, the droids and the old Jedi be damned.

Sure enough, the main roadway into Mos Eisley is blocked off like it is every so often to prevent a political prisoner turned slave from getting off-world. Luke starts to turn the speeder towards one of the entrances only the locals know about that might not be as protected, but Kenobi shakes his head.

A voice in the back of Beru’s head that sounds a little like her perpetually pessimistic husband remarks that Kenobi is going to use them as a distraction while he escapes with the droid. What else could he possibly want with a pair of moisture farmers?

“You can’t be serious,” Beru starts, but Luke pulls into line anyway.

They’re gonna die.

Beru puts her hand on her blaster as subtly as she can. Her chances of drawing it before the stormtroopers shoot are low, but hopefully she’ll get at least one shot off. Maybe the galaxy will be kind, and she’ll get the one that killed Owen.

“Identification.”

Luke glances her way, panic flashing momentarily across his face. Both of them carry their identification religiously. It’s critical to prove at a moment’s notice that you’re free. That’s how she knows Luke’s fumbling for his ID is fake—he always knows where it is. Though the stormtrooper’s mask reveals nothing, it’s painfully obvious that he knows the fumbling is fake, too.

She almost reaches into her own pocket to end this whole mess—she’d rather figure out what to do with a burnt-out moisture farm and mounting debt than die, thank you very much—but Kenobi speaks first.

“You don’t need his identification.”

The world goes foggy. Slowly, Beru withdraws her hand from her pocket. Silly. Why would they need to see that anyway?

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

Beru blinks as the fog grows denser. These  _ are  _ the droids that the Empire is looking for, aren’t they? Suddenly, she’s not all that sure. What’s going on?

“We’ll be going now,” Kenobi says mildly.

Then, miraculously, the trooper steps out of their way. “Have a nice day.”

Luke pulls out of line a little too fast and nearly rams a trash can. If the trooper thinks that’s odd, he doesn’t say so.

Beru’s head still hurts a little. “Wait. These  _ are  _ the droids the Imps are looking for. Aren’t they?”

Luke looks at her as if she’s lost her mind. “Of course they are.” He turns to Kenobi. “But how did you convince them that?”

The fog slowly drifts away. Of course these are the droids. They’re the reason Owen is dead. But why had that been so hard to believe?

“That was a Jedi mind trick,” Kenobi explains, directing Luke to turn with a lazy flick of his wrist. “Useful on beings that are not Force sensitive.”

That explained why it had worked on her, at least. Beru has a hard enough time believing in some mystical energy that binds the universe together, let alone channeling it.

“But it didn’t work on Luke,” Beru says, even though she already has a guess why not.

Kenobi raises his eyebrows. “Owen was right after all. He is his father’s son.”

Luke beams at the thought, but Beru’s stomach clenches. The Force hadn’t stopped Anakin Skywalker from dying. And it certainly hadn’t intervened to save Owen. How much could it possibly do for Luke?

“Yes,” she says quietly as Luke parks the speeder. “I suppose he is.”

* * *

Han Solo can read a room. You have to, in his line of work. The group that wanders into the cantina, though, catches even him off guard. There’s a pair of droids that are far too shiny to have been on Tatooine for long. Then there’s a sunny farmboy type that doesn’t look like he’s ever left. Finally, two old people follow along. Well, they’re probably not all that old, but they’ve got that weathered look that everything and every _ one  _ on Tatooine has eventually. Late forties, early fifties if he had a guess. The kid’s parents, maybe?

One thing’s for sure: they’re desperate. They need to get off-world, and they need to do it fast. If he plays his cards right, he might be able to pay Jabba off by the end of the week. Then, he can go back to pretending that this blasted dustball doesn’t exist. Which is precisely the way he likes it.

“Hey, Chewie!”

The Wookie looks up from a sabacc game that—if Han is reading both Chewie’s cards and the reflection of his opponent's correctly—is going to end with Chewie ripping someone’s arms off. Sending him over to the group will serve two purposes, then. He doesn’t want to clean that up.

“I think they’re looking for a ride.”

Chewie is about to get up and walk over, probably doing the Wookie equivalent of muttering under his breath (talking at a normal volume instead of a roar) about lazy captains who don’t want to do any gruntwork themselves when commotion breaks out at the bar.

Han grimaces at the sight of Sunny Farmboy staring down the business end of a blaster. This little venture might be shorter than he’d thought.

Then, the old lady yanks him back by the scruff of his neck and physically plants herself between him and the blaster. To Han’s surprise—and, Force help him, amusement—she starts shaking a finger in the guy’s face.

Before she can pull the blaster on her hip, though, the old guy comes out of nowhere with—wait, is that a  _ lightsaber _ ?

Well. He’d managed to avoid one of two potential disarmings in the cantina today, at least. They’re  _ definitely  _ going to want to get off world. Lucky thing they've got him.

* * *

Mr. Solo didn’t particularly like it when she called him  _ mister _ , but Beru doesn’t particularly like  _ him _ . It takes more than owning a freighter to make you a captain, and she stands by that. Hopefully he’s not lying about how fast his ship is. If it’s as quick as he says, she’ll only have to see him for a few more hours.

“Are you sure about this?” Luke asks as they hand over the keys to his speeder to its new owner.

Beru shakes her head. “No. But we can’t stay here.”

It’s too late in the season to start over again, and the Imps hadn’t left any of their water behind. When Jabba’s cronies came knocking for their share, they’d want something more than promises for a big haul next year. She’s not allowing herself or Luke to get disappeared.

Besides. It’s not like they’ll be staying with the rebels. Hopefully Kenobi will be able to pull some strings and start them over on another planet. One with greenery, if they’re lucky, though Beru isn’t picky.

“Did we get enough?” Kenobi asks.

Beru resists the urge to glare at him. It was hardly a team effort. Luke had bought the speeder several years ago after scraping the money together, and he’d been the one to sell it.

“Yeah. Let’s go check out this miracle ship.”

The miracle ship in question, as it turns out, looks like a bucket of bolts. 

“The only miracle is if we get out of the atmosphere in one piece,” Beru mutters.

Still, she follows Kenobi onto the ship while Luke stays behind to ask Solo a few questions about it. Beru thinks that he, despite himself, is a bit starstruck. Maybe she and Owen should have picked a different fake profession for Anakin Skywalker.

“You’ve never been off world,” Kenobi observes as they sit down.

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be Jedi Knights, can we?”

Beru buckles her seatbelt a little tighter than strictly necessary and stares determinedly away from the viewport. Every kid on Tatooine dreams of getting off it. Most grow out of it—Beru had, even if her nephew hadn’t. This was definitely not how she’d dreamed she’d do it.

“Go, go, go!”

Solo all but shoves Luke into the seat next to Beru as he careens toward the cockpit.

“Stormtroopers,” Luke explains breathlessly, craning his neck to try to get a better view. “They know we’ve got the droids.”

Artoo beeps something that somehow manages to sound sarcastic, and Threepio says “oh, dear!” at least three times before Beru stops paying attention to him.

“Punch it, Chewie!”

The Wookie roars his assent, and then the ship lurches upward. Beru squeezes her eyes shut.

She peeks them open again when a warm hand covers her own.

“It’s gonna be all right,” Luke says.

And for some reason that Beru can’t quite explain, she believes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys I love Han Solo so much


	3. supernova

Once she finishes throwing up, Beru decides that space travel isn’t all that bad, really. When they make the jump to hyperspace, it sort of feels like they’re sitting still.

“Feeling better?”

Beru fights the urge to scowl. Of all the people that she wouldn't want to witness her vomiting into a crate that she’s ninety percent sure is usually used to smuggle spice, Obi-Wan Kenobi is near the top of the list.

“Yeah.”

He looks...sympathetic, of all things. “When I was a Padawan, my master used to get ill when we had to fly. He eventually figured out an herb that helped settle his stomach.”

She wipes the corner of her mouth and hopes that Solo or the Wookie will catch a hint and offer her something to drink.

“He was with you the first time you came to Tatooine.”

For once, she’s the one to catch Kenobi off-guard. It’s a refreshing feeling. Is that why he’s so cryptic all the time?

“You know that story?”

She nods. “Shmi told it every so often. I liked her. She was a good woman.”

The first time she’d heard it, she hadn’t really believed it. The idea of two Jedi making off with a slave boy was just a little too far-fetched. She’d thought privately that it was a story Shmi told herself to deal with the death—or sale—of her son. As far as coping mechanisms of freedmen went, it was relatively harmless.

But when Shmi’s son had shown up on their doorstep, she’d learned differently.

“I’m not surprised. She raised a good son.”

His face darkens, eyebrows knitting and the worry lines etched into his skin deepening.

“How did he die?” Beru asks, glancing over at where Luke is grilling an increasingly—despite himself—charmed Han Solo about the Falcon’s specs.

Kenobi’s eyes lock on Luke, too. There’s a sort of wistfulness there, Beru thinks. She understands why—from the little she’d seen of Anakin Skywalker, Luke has plenty of his features.

“He was lost in the purge,” Kenobi says at last. “In the first few days of the Empire.”

It’s not new information; it’s exactly how he’d said Skywalker died when Owen had asked all those years ago. She’d been hoping for more detail so that she could prevent Luke from sharing his father’s fate.

“He has his father’s powers, doesn’t he?”

Kenobi had all but confirmed it back in Mos Eisley, but she has to hear it said.

“He does,” Kenobi says with a sigh. “He needs to learn how to channel it.”

Beru raises her eyebrows. “So he can be purged like his father.”

Kenobi flinches as if she’d drawn her blaster on him.

“Untrained, he’s in danger. His Force signature is like a sun. In the Outer Rim, he was safe. In the Core…”

He doesn’t need to elaborate. Beru has a guess what will happen if the Empire realizes that there’s a would-be Jedi running around.

“And if he’s trained?”

“He may have a chance to continue to hide.”

Her mouth twists. “May?”

Kenobi puts his hands in the air, placating. “You wanted honesty.”

It’s not hard to know  _ how  _ she should answer the question he’s not asking. It’s  _ very  _ hard to actually do it.

“Fine,” she says after a silent apology to Owen. “You can train him.”

As she watches Kenobi approach Luke with a lightsaber in his hand, she can’t help but wonder if this is what all of the parents had felt like handing their babies over to the Jedi. It hadn’t exactly worked out for them. All of their babies are dead.

Solo wanders over a few minutes later, dubiously eyeing Luke’s attempts to dodge and parry with a training droid.

“I didn’t think Jedi could have kids,” he says as he drops into the seat across from her.

“Luke’s father is dead.”

Solo looks appropriately apologetic at that. “Sorry for your loss.”

“I’m not his mother. I’m his aunt.”

Luke had asked her once as a child why everyone else’s guardians had the same names with no ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle’ in front of them. Looking at him now, she can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever have the chance to have that sort of innocence again.

Solo gives up on the small talk, so they just sit there in an awkward silence until Kenobi breaks it. He collapses suddenly into a seat, his fingers pressed into his forehead like he’s getting one of Owen’s migraines. Luke drops to a knee beside him, hands fluttering uncertainly like he’s going to try to catch Kenobi if he falls forward.

“What’s wrong?”

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force,” Kenobi says.

Beru shares a skeptical look with Solo before she remembers that she’s supposed to be ignoring his existence.

“As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”

Kenobi looks so perturbed that she can't help but feel a shiver creep down her spine.

“You can feel it when someone dies?” Luke asks quietly.

Beru knows he’s thinking about Owen. She certainly hadn’t felt a monumental shift in the universe when he'd passed. She’d just been in line with her purchases, thinking about what she was going to make for dinner.

“Only when it’s someone I know very well,” Kenobi explains. “Or, perhaps, a catastrophic event.”

Despite herself, Beru shivers again, wondering what could be so catastrophic that a Jedi who’d lost so much could feel it in his bones.

* * *

Alderaan is a graveyard.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes against the sight outside of the viewport. He’d been right—millions had been silenced after dying in agony. At least their suffering had been brief.

Even Solo seems to have temporarily lost the ability to speak. He stares out of the viewport in the same mute horor as the rest of them for a moment too long. The Falcon shudders as the left side grinds against the wreckage.

“Gotta make sure we don’t join them. Come on, Chewie!”

They vanish into the cockpit, but Obi-Wan can’t tear his eyes away from where the planet used to be. Bail, Breha. Millions of their people, snuffed out in a second. He’d foolishly believed that the Empire would never be so bold.

“They can’t just do that.”

Beru. She reminds him of Shmi Skywalker sometimes, and right now, the comparison feels particularly apt.

“They destroyed a homestead for a couple droids,” Luke reminds her.

He drifts closer to put an arm around her shoulders as they stare out at the gaping emptiness.

“Look!” 

Luke points at an Imperial fighter, barely visible at the edge of the viewport. Obi-Wan frowns. It’s been many years since he’s been out in the galaxy, but he still knows what a short-range fighter looks like.

“It followed us,” Beru says.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “It couldn’t have possibly traveled far.”

It could have been stationed above Alderaan, but there’s a sinking feeling in both his stomach and the Force that tells him that’s not the case.

“It’s headed for that moon. Maybe they’ve got a station there,” Luke suggests.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “That’s no moon.”

Solo bursts out of the cockpit, looking very much as if he wishes he hadn’t taken this job in the first place.

“They’ve got a tractor beam! They’re pulling us in!”

They’re finally in range to see the moon for what it is—a battle station. A battle station that can destroy a  _ planet. _

“Then do something about it!” Luke cries.

At the same time, Beru snaps. “Well, don’t just stand there!”

Solo splutters something about no thrusters in the galaxy being strong enough to fix this. They’re getting dragged in whether they like it or not.

None of the old adrenaline that he remembers from the Clone Wars floods his system. There’s just a quiet acceptance around him, the knowledge that he's in the right place at the right time.

He closes his eyes and reaches out with the Force like he hasn’t allowed himself to do in twenty years.

The supernova that is Luke Skywalker nearly blinds him at close range. It’s like trying to stare directly into Tatooine’s twin suns.

Screwing up his eyes as if he were doing precisely that, Obi-Wan reaches further, past Luke and towards the space station. Once, he’d known Anakin Skywalker’s Force signature like he’d known his own. The icy feel of it now almost makes him yank back on instinct.

It feels submerged, as if every part of his former apprentice has been dunked into a frozen lake and held there. The Dark Side may have made him powerful, but it certainly hadn’t made him any less miserable.

Obi-Wan can’t decide whether to feel satisfaction or pity at that.

He withdraws quickly, before the other man can feel his presence. Though it won’t be long now until the father can sense the son. He’s going to have to use the last of his strength to hide Luke at such a close range.

Obi-Wan glances over at the boy, hovering near his aunt in case the ship’s jolting makes her ill again. All he can do now is hope that Luke’s kind heart will keep the dark at bay, even without him around to show him the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi guys today i learned that glass in star wars is called transparasteel and i have resolved to NEVER use that word ever on principle


	4. a new duty

She’s never had the occasion to contemplate her own mortality so many times in one day. Beru can’t bring herself to sit serently cross-legged on the floor like Kenobi, so she crouches as Solo closes the trapdoor securely over their heads.

If they get caught this time, there’s no doubt in Beru’s mind that they won’t just be killed. There’ll be a world of pain first. Whispers about Imperial methods have reached even Tatooine. She  _ really _ doesn’t want to know if the rumors are true.

“Beru.”

She can’t see Kenobi’s face in the dark to glare at him, but she tries her best to project her dislike across the small space anyway.

“Do you  _ want  _ them to find us?” she snaps.

“They’ll only hear what I want them to hear.”

A day ago, she would have scoffed at a statement like that. Having been on the receiving end of one of his mind tricks, though, she has to believe him.

“You need to look after Luke.”

She  _ really _ hopes he can feel her glare.

“I think I did a pretty good job the first nineteen years. It’s only been since he met you that he’s been in danger.”

Something closes around her wrist. In her panic, it takes Beru an embarrassingly long time to realize that Kenobi has grabbed her, his bony fingers tight against her skin.

“Precisely. This is only the beginning, Beru, and he’s going to need all the help he can get.”

This is the beginning? It’s been less than a day and they’ve already lost Owen, been shot at twice, and witnessed the destruction of an entire planet. How could it possibly get more complicated than this?

“He’ll need guidance,” Kenbo continues. “Someone to keep him on the right path.”

His grip tightens. Beru doesn’t bother to try to pull away, although she desperately wants to.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing the guiding? I thought you were training him.”

“I won’t be around forever.”

Her stomach sinks. Kenobi is, at most, a decade older than her. Not nearly old enough to start talking like that. What does he think is going to happen that could possibly result in only some of them making it?

“I don’t—”

“The princess,” Kenobi keeps going, as if he hasn’t heard her. “She’ll need you, too.”

He’s gone off the deep end, Beru decides. The stress of spending nineteen years trying to avoid the Empire only to literally wind up in the belly of the beast has finally broken him.

“She just lost her parents and her planet. She needs someone.”

Beru is about to ask what in the nine hells a moisture farmer is supposed to do for a princess, but the sound of footsteps shuts her up. She winces at the muffled sound of blasterfire, praying that Luke’s crazy plan has worked.

Finally, a rapid series of taps on the roof, and the trapdoor opens. Beru straightens up, squinting in the light.

“We did it!”

She’s never heard such an excited sound coming from a stormtrooper’s helmet before. Seeing Luke in slightly too-big armor makes her heart twist. She’s very glad now that Owen had never let him run off to the academy. Most of the recruits get shuttled off to be troopers anyway.

She takes his offered hand to clamber out of the compartment. Her knees twinge from the prolonged crouch.

“Great,” Solo says, his voice weirdly distorted through the mask. “We still can’t get off this thing, kid. Don’t get too excited.”

Beru can’t help but agree with him, grudgingly. It’s not as if there will be another three sets of armor laying around, and she and Chewbacca wouldn't fit anyway.

Even if there was, they’d be noticed eventually. There’s no getting out of this.

“Can’t we shut off the tractor beam?”

Luke, endlessly optimistic. When she glances over at Kenobi, Beru sees the same fondness on her face reflected on his.

“Leave that to me.”

“By yourself?” Luke asks.

Kenobi nods. “We’d attract attention if we all went running around on the station.” 

He meets Beru’s eyes and gives her a slight nod. Its meaning is clear. Keep an eye on him, keep him out of harm’s way. Easy enough. She’s seen more of this station and what it can do than she’d ever wanted to.

“But—”

“He’s right, Luke,” Beru puts in. “He can take care of himself.”

Admittedly, she’s not quite sure that he can, but there’s no reason for Luke to know that.

“Well, we’re staying here,” Solo says. “I don’t have a death wish, thanks.”

Chewbacca roars in what Beru assumes is agreement. It’s hard to tell, and she doesn’t speak Wookie.

Kenobi shakes his head. “I’d advise you to find somewhere to hide other than the ship. They’ll be watching it.”

“We’re staying with them,” Beru says, before Luke can speak up again. “Someone’s got to look after the droids.”

There’s something in the set of Kenobi’s shoulders that makes worry twist in the pit of Beru’s stomach. He definitely doesn’t think that he’s getting out of this.

He locks eyes with Luke, that same heavy sadness weighing on his features. “The Force will be with you, Luke. Always.”

And with that, he turns on his heel and walks away, his weird brown robe fluttering behind him.

* * *

“Absolutely not.”

Artoo screeches out a series of beeps—Beru can only guess what names he’s calling her, but she ignores the droid.

They’d managed to find a control room that no one seemed to be using about an hour ago, and Luke has been pacing around it the entire time. For her part, Beru keeps checking to see if the Falcon is still in the bay. It’s impossible to tell if Kenobi has managed to shut down the tractor beam.

“They’re going to kill her!” Luke exclaims.

“Kenobi said to stay here.” 

Kenobi had also said to look after the princess, but Beru decides that Luke doesn’t need to know. Right now, her priority is her kid’s safety, not the safety of some woman that she’s never met.

“Can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m with her,” Solo says, shaking his head. “I’m not getting me and Chewie killed on account of some royalty.”

Luke’s eyes harden in a familiar way, like they always do when he wants something, and he has an argument ready. Beru braces herself, but the smuggler doesn’t. Bad luck for him. Her nephew can be very persuasive when he wants to be.

“She’s rich, you know.”

Though Solo makes a face, Beru can tell right then and there that he’s already gone.

“Yeah?”

The Wookie buries his face in his sizable hands.

“Yeah,” Luke confirms. “I’ll bet that you’ll get a reward if you rescue her.”

Beru wonders how much debt Solo has built up. If he’s considering this, it must be quite a lot. She hopes for his sake that it’s not to the Hutts.

“More money than you can imagine,” Luke says, needling as he gets closer to his goal.

She should have never taught him how to barter.

“You sure? I can imagine quite a lot.”

“I’ll bet you can,” Beru mutters.

Men like him can always imagine quite a lot. They just tend to be incapable of getting their hands on it.

Solo swears. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Beru plants her hands on her hips. “No.”

When Luke smiles, she knows that he’s got a trump card hidden somewhere behind that carefully crafted innocent look.

“She’s nineteen standard, Aunt Beru. Just like me.”

Damn it all. He’s got her.

They explain away the Wookie’s presence, to his consternation, with a set of binders. Beru highly doubts that a band of Imps will believe that she’s a high profile prisoner, though.

“I’m cleaning staff,” she concludes after a moment of thought.

To someone not familiar with Tatooine dress, her clothes could be mistaken for a uniform. More critically, she’s willing to bet all of their lives that none of the Imps they cross paths with have ever noticed a member of the staff.

“ _ Cleaning _ ?” Solo half-yelps, incredulous.

“No, she’s right. Did you notice any dust in the halls?”

Solo is probably about to remark that he doesn't make a habit of inspecting his location for cleanliness—which Beru already knows, given that they’d met him in that disgusting cantina—but Beru cuts him off.

“If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to go now.”

Threepio quickly relays directions to the detention wing, useful for the first time. Then, they leave the droids behind and set out into the hallway.

Beru stays about twenty paces behind them at all times. It’s easy to duck her head and avoid eye contact, particularly when they encounter the higher-ups that aren’t wearing armor. She can’t stand to look them in their faces, so scurrying along like she’s too afraid to meet their eyes is all too easy.

Getting up to the detention level is simpler than it probably should be. Then again, Beru reasons, it’s not like a battle station like this one would have many break-ins. Even this one had been unintentional.

At Luke’s signal, she stays in the hallway while he and Solo march the Wookie into the detention center. She busies herself in looking as if she’s inspecting for dust. When blasterfire rings out again, she winces, but she trusts Luke’s aim. He and his buddies have been shooting at womp rats for years—at least it’s been good for something.

One trooper bursts into the hallway. Without even thinking about it, Beru brings her blaster, which had been hidden beneath her jacket, down on his helmeted head with a clang that makes her arms tingle. He crumples just as Solo makes it outside.

“We’re gonna have trouble,” he says, ushering her inside. “Know how to jam the doors?”

While he messes with the control panel, Beru eyes the door mechanism. All it takes is a quick blaster bolt in the right place.

It’ll buy them a little time, at least. Leaving Solo and the Wookie to man the door, she takes off down the hallway after Luke, who’s just sticking his head into a cell.

* * *

Leia Organa’s rescue crew consists of a Wookie, a man who has the audacity to  _ wink  _ at her the moment they make eye contact, a sandy-haired kid who is just maybe her age, and what looks like his middle-aged mother.

Right, then. Now it’s up to her to make sure these idiots don’t die.


	5. a revelation

The very last thing that Leia expects from one of her rescuers is this.

“Beru Whitesun Lars.”

She sticks her hand out, realizes that it’s covered in grime from the garbage, wipes it on her shirt, and only succeeds in spreading the filth around. Beru shrugs, smiles as if to say ‘what can you do?’ and offers her hand again.

Leia smiles despite the fact that she’s up to her knees in garbage fluid. It’s nice to meet someone with manners.

“Senator Leia Organa,” she replies, taking the other woman’s hand.

Flyboy rolls his eyes. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, can we focus on getting out of here?”

They’re certainly not an Alliance rescue team. For one thing, any rebel would know that it was better to leave her in her cell and escape with the plans than to stage a rescue. For another, she still can’t work out how they’re all related. The Wookie and Flyboy— _ he  _ hadn’t bothered to introduce himself—were easy enough to explain. Transport gone wrong. But the old woman and the boy? Surely General Kenobi didn’t recruit them.

“Did you hear that?” Luke asks, staring warily around at the murky water.

Leia frowns. There’s a splash over her left shoulder, only all of the others are standing in front of her.

Beru takes an aborted step forward, but before she can grab Luke by the elbow, something jerks him under.

It’s a credit to the kid’s natural charisma that they all yelp his name at once as he goes down. Well, the Wookie roars something that Leia assumes is equivalent, anyway. She plunges her hands into the muck, but she can’t feel the smooth stormtrooper armor anywhere.

Flyboy surprises her by diving headfirst into the garbage. When he resurfaces, it’s with Luke in his arms but with a tentacle wrapped around both their necks.

“Aunt—” Luke wheezes.

Beru draws a blaster, steadies her aim—

“Are you nuts?” Flyboy manages to yelp at the same time that Leia yells, “No!” and the Wookie roars.

The blaster bolt grazes the tentacle and strikes harmlessly into a pile of garbage. The creature retracts instantly, leaving Luke to catch his breath and Flyboy to splutter wordlessly for a few moments.

“I raised a toddler in the desert,” Beru says with a shrug. “You always did attract strange creatures, Luke.”

Luke rubs at his throat. “Not my fault I’m so charming.”

With the one crisis averted, Leia turns her attention back to the one at hand.

The blaster clearly didn’t work. And it’s not like they have anything to bludgeon the door down with. She briefly considers crawling back up the chute and trying their luck with the troopers, but she’s not quite that desperate.

As if the universe had heard her, the walls start to move.

This day just keeps getting better and better.

Leia wonders if it’s better to be crushed to death in a trash compactor, blasted by a trooper, or poisoned/electrocuted (she hadn’t managed to figure out how they’d planned to terminate her) by Tarkin. Not that she has much choice in the matter right now.

“Here.” 

Snapping back into action, she shoves a long piece of metal—construction equipment, maybe, from the still-unfinished quarters of what Mon Mothma has been calling the Death Star—and shoves it at Beru. The other woman catches on instantly.

“Luke!”

But he’s too busy fiddling with his commlink to notice. Instead, Flyboy grabs hold and helps hoist it above their heads, aided by the Wookie. At least he’s good for something.

“It’s not gonna hold!”

Leia opens her mouth to thank him for stating the obvious when the kid finally gets a response on the other end of the line.

She’s never once in her life been grateful to hear her father’s protocol droid, but it seems like today is going to be full of firsts.

Luke yelps desperate instructions to the droid. Leia, remembering every long-winded, circular conversation she’s ever had with C-3PO, quitely resigns herself to death. 

Just as the walls reach both of her shoulders, they shudder to a halt and start to retreat. The kid sweeps her up in a hug before Leia has fully processed the fact that they’re not going to die right this minute. To her surprise, she hugs back. It feels good to hug someone, even if they’re dressed as a trooper.

When they separate, Beru wipes a little bit off the gunk off of his cheek. Leia thinks of her mother and has to bite down on the inside of her cheek.

* * *

Beru isn’t quite sure what to make of the senator. Luke was right—she’s young. Young to be a senator, young to be a political prisoner, young to have lost everything in one fell swoop.

But she’s clever, as she's proved with the escape route. And resilient. Beru had noticed the bruised pinpricks on the inside of her elbow when she’d reached out to shake hands, and she has a guess as to what caused them.

She doesn’t like the thought much.

There isn’t too much time to dwell on it, though. Tatooine doesn't exactly lend itself to regular running—between the sand and the heat, it’s near impossible—so she’s out of breath as they pick up the pace. Solo gets out in front, taking lefts and rights seemingly at random. Beru hopes for all of their sakes that he’s got some sort of supernatural ability to sense the presence of his ship.

As she lags behind, two stormtroopers pop out in front of her, separating her from the group. Beru fires off two quick shots before wheeling around and taking off in the opposite direction. Panic bubbles up in her chest as she takes one blind turn after the other, somehow managing to avoid troopers. 

All she wants is to get back to Luke, but she doesn’t even know what direction she’s traveling in, much less where he is.

Breath starting to come in desperate heaves, Beru skids around a corner, miraculously leading out into the hanger bay. Up ahead, Luke makes sure Solo and Senator Organa are under the Falcon’s belly before he wheels around and sprints back in her direction.

“Aunt Beru! Come on!”

* * *

The black hole of energy that was once Anakin Skywalker is drawing closer.

It’s taken every shred of Obi-Wan’s slowly flagging energy to conceal the burst of light that was the twins meeting for the first time. Now, there’s only one step left to take. A distraction to get them off the station.

He hears the mechanical breathing a split second before his old apprentice rounds the corner, a red lightsaber Obi-Wan doesn’t recognize ignited in his hand.

“When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master.”

He wants, desperately, to use his name. To try, one last time, to reanimate Anakin Skywalker. Instead, he can only bring himself to use his title.

“Only a master of evil, Darth.”

Their duel isn’t the fury-quick strikes of Mustafar. Time and Tatooine have made Obi-Wan old. And the suit—he’s seen it in holos hundreds of times in the last two decades, but it’s a monstrous apparatus in person, several decades out of date—has slowed his opponent.

“Your powers are weak, old man.”

Obi-Wan grits his teeth as a particularly powerful strike makes his arms wobble. The twins are all that matter right now. So long as he keeps their existence, their power, hidden from their father, he will have won.

“You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

As much as Obi-Wan tries to move the duel in the opposite direction from the hanger, they begin to move towards it anyway, as if his opponent can sense his plans.

Maybe he can.

They emerge into a hallway above the hanger. Obi-Wan’s heart leaps into his mouth at the sight of both of them, Leia dragging Luke along as they sprint towards Solo and the relative safety of the Falcon.

Once they’re hidden beneath its bulk, Obi-Wan reaches to deactivate his blade.

And then everything goes from bad to worse than twenty years of planning in the desert could have ever prepared him for.

“Aunt Beru!”

Luke charges out from under the Falcon for his aunt, and the room’s temperature  _ plunges _ . The rage that sweeps through the Force nearly knocks Obi-Wan off of his feet.

“No,” his old friend croaks, “You—”

But he can’t find the words. Instead, he lets out a roar that should have been impossible through the mask.

As he brings up his blade, Obi-Wan allows himself one last look at Luke and Leia before he deactivates his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really didn't want to kill obi-wan, but he knows waaaaay too much
> 
> on another note, george lucas and i have wildly different ideas about how to write dialogue


	6. don't waste water

Obi-Wan is distracted. Throughout their duel, his attention is elsewhere, and Vader, despite himself, feels the same annoyance that he had as a teenager when he couldn’t get his master’s attention. He’s been waiting twenty years for this duel and  _ something  _ is somehow more important. How very much like his old master that Kenobi somehow manages to ruin it.

As they emerge into a hallway above the hangar where the sorry excuse for a freighter Kenobi came in on is, he gets an answer. The boy racing across the hanger behind the princess glows with the Force, despite Kenobi’s feeble attempts to shield him.

A new apprentice? Some sort of half-hearted attempt to revive the lost order? He opens his mouth to chastise Kenobi for that foolishness when a middle-aged woman bursts out into a hanger. 

Something about her—

“Aunt Beru!”

It can’t be.

Horror seeps through his long-dormant bond with Kenobi, confirming what Vader already knows.

_ Ani, something wonderful has happened. _

She  _ died.  _ He  _ killed her. _ And yet. Not immediately, because if she had died, the child— _ his  _ child—

None of this is possible. But the pieces fall into place one after the other. Beru Whitesun. Obi-Wan.  _ Padmé. _

“No.”

Kenobi’s eyes are wide, the familiar look of a plan gone horribly, horribly wrong on his face.

“You—”

You  _ what?  _ Stole my child? Let my wife die? Brought an untrained kid who could have been captured or killed on a rescue mission with nearly impossible odds of success—

And then, Kenobi’s plan takes shape: he’s a distraction.

Vader lets out a scream that makes his damaged lungs ache. Kenboi raises his eyebrows just like he always did when he was right and Anakin was wrong as he deactivates his blade.

He cuts Kenobi down with a howl, fully intending to cause the same agony that Kenboi once caused him, but the second his lightsaber finds flesh, his old master is gone.

The boy—his  _ son _ —yelps, “No!” as someone drags him on to the ship.

Vader reaches out with every scrap of the Force that he can muster to hold the ship at bay, but he’s forced to watch as Beru Whitesun hauls his horrified child away from the viewport as the Millenium Falcon takes off.

* * *

If Beru had thought that the takeoff from Tatooine had been rocky, she had another thing coming.

She loses her balance as something—the tractor beam?—grabs hold of the ship. Solo swears, flips a few switches, and then they’re moving.

Senator Organa grabs ahold of Beru’s elbow and tows her off towards the seat Kenobi had occupied on the journey there. She’s remarkably steady on her feet as the Falcon pitches and rolls. Definitely not just a senator or a princess in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“He’s a good shot?” Senator Organa asks, jerking her head toward the place where Luke has vanished to man the guns.

Beru nods—if she opens her mouth, she’s going to vomit all over the other woman’s white dress. Not that it would be the worst thing to happen to that dress today.

“Stay put,” Senator Organa says before rushing off to the cockpit.

As much as Beru wants to offer to help, she knows perfectly well that she’s no good on board a starship. She’d spent her whole life with her feet planted firmly in the sand like any good moisture farmer should. Not that it had done her any good in the end.

A few tense minutes later, Luke emerges, grinning.

“Just like shooting womp rats.”

Solo reenters the room as well, eyebrows raised. “That was  _ nothing  _ like shooting womp rats.”

The two bicker good-naturedly as if they’ve known each other for years. Getting shot at together a few times will do that, Beru thinks wryly. Despite herself, even she’s getting a little charmed by the smuggler’s easy affection for her nephew.

They set course for a system called Yavin, which means very little to Beru. The geography that she’d learned during her short schooling had been a little more focused on where Mos Eisley was compared to Anchorhead. When she asks, though, Solo informs her that it’s only a few hours of travel away, which is fine by her. 

The faster they get to the rebels, the faster they can hand over the plans and avenge Owen. Then, she can get them to set her and Luke up with enough credits to buy a house next to a river on some planet that isn’t a desert, and Luke can forget all about the Jedi and poor, dead Ben Kenobi.

The little voice in the back of her head that sounds like ever-practical Owen tells her that getting Luke to forget will be easier said than done, but she ignores it.

About an hour into their journey, she goes looking for the refresher. She doesn’t have very high hopes for the state of it, considering that it’s primarily used by a Wookiee and a man like Solo, but she needs to get the smell of ash off her skin.

When she opens the door, she finds the princess hunched over the small toilet. Motherly instinct overrides her awkwardness. Instead of backing out, she steps inside the tiny space and closes and locks the door behind her.

“It’s not the drugs, is it?”

She has a fair amount of experience helping the occasional runaway slave. It’s not uncommon for them to be drugged, so she’s pretty sure she can fix the senator up with whatever medical supplies Solo has stashed away if that’s the case.

“Don’t think so.”

After Leia—Beru can’t help but drop the title at the sight of her so small and scared—gives her an encouraging nod, Beru settles beside her on the floor.

“I’m sorry about Alderaan.”

She will never forget what the asteroid field that had once been a planet looked like. She can’t even imagine how thoroughly it must be burned into Leia’s mind.

“They wanted the location of the rebel base,” Leia says dully, her gaze fixed on something that Beru can’t see. “I didn’t give it to them.”

She sniffles and wipes snot on the sleeve of her dress.

“Thy’d have done it anyway,” Beru says.

She’s seen this same scene play out on a much smaller scale on Tatooine more times than she can count. If the Hutts want to make an example, they’ll make up a reason.

“Maybe. Or maybe it would have been a different planet.”

That’s logic Beru can’t argue with.

She leans back against the wall of the fresher, trying not to think about how long it’s been since Solo has last cleaned it.

“My parents were moisture farmers. Freedmen. They escaped slavery as children. I was the first of either of their families born free.”

She’d always taken it as a given, though her parents had always tried to impart just how much a gift freedom was.

“My name, Whitesun, is a slave’s name. You pick something that sounds free—like the sun, like the sky, like the wind—and then you hope you can live up to it.” Beru swallows. “You have to be careful with a name like that.”

Leia’s eyes refocus on her face as she listens. The words stick in Beru’s throat. She hasn’t told this story much; on Tatooine, everybody has a few tragedies in their past. Why bother comparing?

“When I was fourteen, we had a drought year. The Hutts came looking for their water tax, but we didn’t have enough.”

Even now, three-odd decades on, her eyes mist up. Leia’s do, too, though Beru can’t tell if it’s from sympathy or her own pain. 

“They demanded payment. They wanted me. But my parents told me to run, instead. Sent me off to Anchorhead to live with my aunt and uncle.”

A sharp intake of breath from Leia.

“I found out later that they’d enslaved my parents and burnt the homestead. I never saw them again.”

She blinks a few times, clears the moisture from her eyes. You don’t waste water.

“My guess is that the enormity of the whole planet hasn’t hit you yet, right?”

Leia thinks for a moment before shaking her head.

“But your parents. Your home. I know what that feels like. So if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

The girl—because, really, she’s not much more than that—nods. The same steely determination that she’s seen too many times on Luke slides over her face like a mask.

“Thank you.”

Beru gets to her feet, knees protesting. Then, she flushes the vomit away and offers Leia her hand. When the girl stands, she’s actually a little shorter than Beru. Funny. She’d seemed taller.

Beru hugs her on instinct, and the fierceness with which Leia clings back tells her that coming in here was the right move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly thank god i finally got to pass the Bechdel Test
> 
> in other news, I was today years old when I learned that Wookiee is in fact not spelled 'Wookie.' why is there an extra E. why must you torment me like this, lucasfilm.
> 
> thank you for all your kind words--you're all inspiring me so much with this fic <3


	7. padmé amidala

Arguing with Luke is something of an art. He’s so guileless, so disarming that you sometimes forget what you're arguing about. Before, Beru was content to play good Imp to Owen’s bad, but that was before.

Now, the bad Imp is out in full force.

“You’ve only ever flown that Skyhopper!”

Luke shrugs. “They cleared me.”

Beru gestures at the group of X-Wings that would fit in better at a junkyard than a dogfight. “They cleared those ships, too.”

Luke crosses his arms, stubbornness settling into his jawline. “You can’t stop me.”

Her hands clench into fists at her sides. Beru forces her fingers to uncurl again before she speaks.

“I lost your uncle. I won’t lose you, too.”

“You won’t lose me!”

“You can’t guarantee that!”

He shakes his head. “No. But you raised me to do the right thing. And this--destroying this station--is the right thing.”

Beru growls her frustration and stalks off.  _ Someone  _ is going to get an earful.

* * *

“ _ Who  _ let him take that test?”

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Beru Whitesun Lars takes Leia completely by surprise. She storms into a meeting between Leia, Admiral Ackbar, and Senator Mothma, face as red as a Tatooine sunset.

For a moment, nobody even breathes, too taken aback by the interruption. Then, Mothma speaks.

“I’m sorry, who are--”

Sensing danger, Leia steps in. “Beru Whitesun Lars. She was part of my rescue team.”

Mothma’s faces softens, just as Leia knew it would.

“You did a good thing today.”

But Beru refuses to be flattered into silence. “He’s a kid!”

Leia suddenly realizes what’s going on. “He’s a damn good pilot.”

Anyone who wants to fly one of the Alliance’s X-Wings needs to take a run in a simulator and score adequately. More, admittedly, because they have a limited number of ships than out of concern for the pilots. Luke’s scores had been off the charts.

“Skywalker,” Mothma says as she, too, catches up. “The princess is right. He has skill. Much like his father.”

If Beru is surprised to hear about her brother-in-law, she doesn’t show it. “Great. Can we make sure that he doesn’t end up as  _ dead  _ as his father?”

Leia doesn’t think she’s ever seen Mon Mothma actually struck silent before.

“He’s willing to fly, and he’s got what it takes. We need pilots,” Leia tries.

Beru rounds on her. “Not my kid. He’s never even flown in space!”

Wait, what?

Suddenly, Leia knows exactly why Beru is concerned. But Mothma doesn’t so much as blink.

“Neither had his father. But trust me, he managed.”

“He,” Beru says, drawing herself up to her full height, “is  _ not  _ his father.”

She crosses her arms and glares at all three of them. The woman who had comforted her in the Falcon’s fresher is gone.

“Take him off the list.”

Mothma shakes her head. “He’s an adult. The only thing that can ground him is his own choice.”

Beru turns beseeching eyes on Leia, but she has to look away. They need a pilot as good as Luke on the force if they’re ever going to pull this off, and after Alderaan, she’s never needed anything more than the Death Star’s destruction.

* * *

When she stalks away from the brass, Beru is so furious that she can’t see straight. So much so, in fact, that she walks directly into a pilot dressed in bright orange fatigues.

“Aunt Beru?”

Biggs Darklighter grins disarmingly at her, the same way that he always had when he’d brought Luke home limping from a fight or a crash.

“I thought you went Imp!”

Biggs shakes his head. “Nah. Took their pilot training and ran.”

He looks older, and not just because it’s been two years since she’s seen him. It’s not like there’s plenty to go around on Tatooine, but she suspects that the rebels have seen some lean times lately.

It doesn’t exactly give her a warm and fuzzy feeling about their chances in a dogfight with a kyrat dragon.

“Your parents miss you. But they’re doing well.”

Biggs smiles at that. “Just wish I could get word to them that I’m okay. I’m a long way from home. What are you doing here, anyway?”

Beru thinks that if she tries to explain what has happened in the last day--because, if her internal chronometer is right, it’s only been a little longer than that--her mind will just melt.

“Imps killed Owen,” she says. “Luke decided to join up with the rebellion, and it wasn’t like I had anywhere better to be.”

All true, technically. Luke can fill him in on the details later.

Biggs makes a sympathetic noise. “He didn’t deserve that.”

Beru angles herself a little away from him so that he can’t see the way her face tightens. But as soon as she does, her eyes land on a familiar face across the hangar, and it drives all thoughts of Owen from her head.

“Who’s that?”

Biggs looks over his shoulder at the woman painted on the side of a nearby X-Wing.

“Padmé Amidala,” he says. “Grotto swears up and down she’s good luck. She was the first person to stand up to the Empire. First person to get killed by them, too, if you ask me.”

The face on the side of the X-Wing stares back at her, as if to tell her that she’s standing in Padmé’s rightful place.

“You okay, Aunt Beru?” Biggs asks, but her mind is elsewhere.

“You look after Luke up there, all right?” 

Biggs opens his mouth, probably to ask how in the galaxy Luke managed to finagle his way on to the Red Squadron, but Beru is gone before he gets the words out.

It doesn’t take her too long to find Luke. He’s arguing with a tech about keeping Artoo with him, and from his expression, Beru can tell--as per usual--he’s winning.

When he sees her, he frowns. Beru swallows the hurt down.

“I’m not going to just sit around when I could be helping, so don’t--”

“I’m not here to argue with you. You’re an adult. You can make these decisions yourself.”

Luke still looks suspicious when she motions for him to follow her, but he clambers down from the X-Wing anyway, ignoring Artoo’s loud beeping.

“There’s something I’ve never told you. Owen and I thought it would be too dangerous if it got out.”

In the days after adopting Luke, Beru had researched his parents. The Jedi, Anakin Skywalker, didn’t come up all that often, but Padmé Amidala was all over the holonet. They’d decided that it was safe enough to mention his father, but his famous mother had to be swept under the rug.

Still frowning slightly, Luke follows her through the barely organized chaos of fighters and pilots until they reach Grotto’s X-Wing.

“That’s your mother,” Beru says quietly.

Any of the annoyance left on Luke’s face drains away. He searches the woman’s face hungrily--Beru can tell that he’s looking for similarities to his own.

“You always said you didn’t know her name.”

Beru nods. “I only met her once.”

Luke stares. “You  _ met  _ her?”

Beru can’t deny a small stab of jealousy at the wonder in his face. Luke’s childhood questions had always been about his father, about Shmi. But now that he’s seen his mother’s eyes, it shocks her how much her heart squeezes at the raw need in his face.

Maybe that’s why Owen always hated talking about Anakin.

“When I met your father, she came with him.”

He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the face on the X-Wing.

“What was she like?’

The first word that comes to mind is wealthy, but Beru clamps down on it. It’s not as if that’s what Luke wants to know about his mother.

“Polite. Kind. When she talked to me, it wasn’t like she was a queen and I was a moisture farmer.”

Luke’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “A what?”

Beru nods. “I looked her up, after.”

She’d had to go all the way to Mos Espa to do it, too. Owen had made fun of her for it, but the shock on his face when she’d told him that Padmé Amidala was a queen and a senator had been well worth the teasing.

“Yes. Of a planet called Naboo. She was their senator, too.”

She doesn’t think that Luke’s eyes can widen any further, but they do. There’s a reverence in them that Beru isn’t sure what to do with.

“Then--” Luke pauses. “She didn’t die in childbirth, did she?”

He’d always had the idea that his father had come back to his homeworld and fallen in love with another poor moisture farmer. After all, dying in childbirth isn’t exactly uncommon back home. Beru and Owen had done very little to disabuse him of that notion.

Beru smiles sadly. “It didn’t make her invincible, Luke.”

Hearing that doesn’t lessen the wonder on his face.

“What’s she doing on the side of an X-Wing?”

Beru tells him what Biggs said (“Biggs is here? Where?”) and Luke’s smile just keeps growing.

“What--what was her name?” he asks at last.

“Padmé. Padmé Amidala.”

Luke repeats the words over a few times, getting them right. Beru wonders if she’s said it the way they do on Naboo.

Finally, he meets her eyes again. “If you really want me grounded, I can stay.”

Every part of her wants to tell him to do exactly that. But he’s right. Something greater needs him right now. A cause that Beru suspects took his mother and father and certainly took his uncle.

“You take that thing out, you hear me?”

He pulls her into a hug, squeezing tighter than he has since he was a child. Beru hugs back, blinking quickly. Suns, she hasn’t nearly cried this many times in such a short span in her entire life.

“You take it out, and then you come back to me, understood?”

Luke grins. “Loud and clear.” Then, his face becomes serious again. “You know that I love you, right?”

She smiles. “Yes. And I love you, too.”

As he jogs back to his X-Wing, all Beru can do is hope that her love is enough to protect him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beru is in an interesting place here. owen always had to 'compete' for the father-figure spot with anakin, which was nearly impossible because luke could idealize his father any way he wanted to. meanwhile, thanks to keeping padmé's identity a secret, beru never had that struggle.
> 
> i definitely want to play around with padmé and her legacy, so hopefully we'll see more of this interplay!


	8. the beginning

There is a little voice in Han’s head that tells him to just ignore the sight of Beru Lars ducking and weaving through the throng of pilots and well-wishers.

It’s a very good voice.

He doesn’t listen to it. Instead, he ducks out from underneath the Falcon’s belly and jogs until he catches up with her.

“Uh—Mrs. Lars?”

He winces. He hasn’t been sure how to address the woman, and he’s avoided it so far. He gets her attention, at least, so there’s that.

She glares. “Mr. Solo. I thought you were leaving.”

The princess must have filled her in. Typical. Han can’t think of what he’d meant to say, so he flounders instead.

“I just wanted to say bye,” he finishes lamely.

She raises an eyebrow. Behind him, still hidden from sight by the Falcon, he’s sure that Chewbacca is laughing his furry head off. The coward.

“You wanted to say bye,” she repeats.

The disgust in her faces makes Han want to defend himself.

“Hey, lady, this isn’t my fight, all right? I got you where you wanted to go. My part of this little transaction is over. It’s been fun.”

Beru shakes her head. “I wish my nephew thought a little more like you.”

It takes a few moments for that to click. When it does, Han swears under his breath, much to Beru’s disapproval.

“They can’t let him up there, can they?”

And suddenly her anger makes sense. She’s not like Leia, furious because he’s turning his back on some noble cause. It’s because she wants to do the same, but Luke won’t let her.

Luke, who’s going up in a kriffing X-wing and probably won’t be coming down.

Oh, he’s got a bad feeling about this.

“Goodbye, then,” Beru says coldly after a few tense moments pass.

Han is left standing with his hand halfheartedly in the air as she stalks off. Damn it. He knows what he’s got to do, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

* * *

Beru can’t bring herself to watch the X-Wings take off. Instead, she heads for the strategy room. Technically, Leia hadn’t said that she couldn’t stay there during the battle. She’d only said that it was for the leadership. So Beru makes herself right at home, ignoring the strange looks that she’s attracting.

The first order of business is Leia. She looks right at home as she absorbs briefings from men and women more than twice her age, but she also looks impossibly young.

Once she gets a free moment, Beru walks up to Leia with a glass of water. No one had even questioned her on her intake today when she’d filled it. But then, Beru had seen condensations on the leaves of the trees outside, so maybe that wasn't so much of a surprise.

“I didn’t think you’d be able to eat. I wasn’t.”

Leia looks up from whatever is on the datapad that had been holding her concentration. “I couldn’t even think about it right now. Thanks.”

She takes a few sips before setting it down. Beru stares at her until she picks the glass back up and finishes.

“Are you sure that you want to be in here?”

Beru nods. “If something happens to him, I want to be the first one to know it.”

She’s not like Luke or Ben Kenobi. She’s not going to feel a piece of herself getting ripped out just because Luke’s X-Wing explodes.

Leia fixes her with a solemn stare. “If it—if it happens, you can’t be a distraction.”

“Don’t worry,” Beru says, thinking of Owen. “It won’t.”

Oddly, as the room fills, the conversation dies. Eventually, they’re all standing in silence, eyes fixed on screens, ears straining for the first news, fingers drumming uselessly on tabletops. For her part, Beru stands straight, fingers laced behind her back, while she waits.

The admiral—Beru has forgotten his name—strides into the room and somehow the hush grows even quieter.

“Our estimates put the Death Star in firing range in a little over a half a standard hour.”

Beru stops breathing. Beside her, Leia’s face drains of little color had been in it with the day she’s had already. Beru knows she’s thinking about what Alderaan had looked like as it had exploded.

Maybe it’s better for Luke to be up there in an X-Wing after all.

* * *

There’s a pile of bodies in his wake, and their number won’t stop growing any time soon.

Twenty years have doused the fires that gave him the power of a Sith, but right now, Vader’s fury is a live wire.

A son. Hidden from him for the length of an entire childhood, raised by two moisture farmers with the combined Force sensitivity of a bantha, trapped on a Force-forsaken rock like Tatooine.

Kenobi is lucky he could only be killed once.

“Tarkin,” he snarls as soon as the door open.s

The man’s office is stupidly ornate, considering the clean lines and dark walls of the rest of the station. Vader reins in the urge to destroy the carved wooden desk. He needs the Moff to listen to him.

“You cannot destroy Yavin 4.”

At that, Tarkin finally looks up from the datapan in front of him.

“Whyever not?”

He’d been too wrapped up in the thought of the boy to come up with a plausible reason to hold fire on a rebel base.

“There is a...person of interest on the planet,” Vader says slowly. “The Emperor would be most displeased to learn that he had been killed.”

Tarkin regards him. “As I’m sure he would be displeased to let an entire faction of rebels and what I believe is their entire pathetic fleet slip through his fingers.”

Vader growls in frustration; thankfully, the mask doesn’t pick up on it. Ordinarily, this would be the perfect time for a witty retort, but his mind is elsewhere.

For a moment, Vader considers strangling Tarkin and seizing control of this wasteful monstrosity himself. But orchestrating such a thing takes time—time his son does not have. There’s nothing else for it. He’ll have to get down to the surface and collect his son himself.

* * *

Later, Beru will have no recollection of the first stage of the battle, which she spends staring straight ahead in mute horror as scream after scream comes through the coms as the pilots die one by one.

Even Leia seems to have misplaced her resolute cool. When she isn’t gripping the edge of the nearest table, her hands tremble.

Luke’s voice jolts Beru out of her stupor. “It’ll be just like Beggar’s Canyon back home!”

Beru closes her eyes. Beside her, Leia only shakes her head.

Later, she’ll hate herself for the relief that rushes through her when she identifies the scream as Biggs, not Luke.

“He’s switched off his targeting computer!”

Beru’s eyes snap open. “He did what?”

“Death Star is in range.”

Well, at least they’re all going to die together.

“They’re gaining on him!” someone gasps.

One of Beru’s nails digging into her palm breaks skin.

“It’s a hit!”

The words take a few moments to sink in. Beru lurches to the side, still in shock, as Leia yanks her into a hug. Her heartbeat hasn’t slowed.

“Is he—did he—?”

“He’s all right!” Leia yells.

Beaming, she grabs Beru by the hand and drags her along the hallways back to the hangar. The tight muscles in Beru’s shoulders don’t relax until she spots a familiar blond head engulfed in a series of hugs and slaps on the back.

Beru plows through the crowd with Leia in tow and pulls him into a hug as soon as he’s in reach.

“Glad you let me get that Skyhopper now?” he quips.

Beru just hugs him tighter.

She wishes Owen were here to see this, even if he would have complained the whole time. She hopes they’ve given him some peace.

But as she looks around—at C-3PO waving his arms frantically as Artoo is plucked out of the ship, at Han Solo practically lifting Luke and Leia off the ground, at Chewbacca roaring in victory—there’s still a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Ben Kenobi was right.

This is just the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you're all staying safe, wherever you are :D
> 
> i'm gonna need a fun escape more than ever, and i expect you all will, too, so hang in there!
> 
> here's where things start to really diverge--i'm super excited for the next chapter.


	9. the chase

Luke is precisely halfway through a shot of something Corellian—Beru doesn’t remember its name, just that it burns when it goes down—when he drops his glass.

“Too much, kid?” Captain Solo asks with a laugh, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

Luke scoffs. “I’m from Tatooine, Han.”

That’s not the only reason he can hold his liquor—although that certainly helps. He’d once drunk her and Owen both under the table during a particularly long and boring sandstorm. Now, Beru wonders if Kenobi’s Force helps you stay sober.

Speaking of, any fun drains from Luke’s face. “We’ve got to move.”

Beru can hardly hear him over the celebrations of the other rebels. She suspects that they haven’t had much to celebrate lately.

“Luke?”

The same seriousness snaps over Leia’s face. It’s almost eerie the way she makes silent eye contact with her nephew and seems to read his mind.

“Something’s coming,” Leia says. “But—all our intelligence said that the rest of the fleet was above Coruscant.”

Luke shakes his head. “Not the fleet. It—”

He closes his eyes, presses his fingers to his forehead like he’s trying to ward off a headache. Captain Solo subtly shifts behind him so he’s ready to catch him if he falls.

Perhaps Beru had misjudged him.

“Something’s coming,” he says at last, opening his eyes. “We need to evacuate. Leia, how—”

“Come with me.”

Leia grabs him by the hand and drags him through the crowd. Before Beru can follow them, they’re swallowed up.

“Freaky,” Captain Solo observes, tipping back his glass. 

Beru can’t argue with that.

“Has he always been like that?”

Beru pauses to think about it. Luke always  _ had  _ had a knack for knowing when a sandstorm was brewing. And more than once he’d correctly guessed that someone was coming for the water tax.

“Yes,” she says. “He has.”

The Corellian liquor doesn’t feel particularly good in her stomach right now. Beru sets down her glass.

Chewbacca roars something.

“What d’you mean, trust a Jedi’s instincts? That kid ain’t—”

Beru dives into the crowd, the unease in her chest growing larger with every step. She doesn’t think that she can stand to see Luke take another trip up in an X-Wing today.

She only makes it about two thirds of the way across the hangar before the mood changes. One by one, the pilots—still, for the most part, dressed in orange fatigues—lift their comms to their ears. One by one, their faces drain of color. And one by one, they head for the X-Wings they’d barely just gotten out of.

Around them, groups of rebels scatter, performing well-rehearsed steps to a dance Beru has never heard of. Her panic mounts as the room steadily empties, but Luke doesn’t re-emerge.

“Mrs. Lars!”

Captain Solo jogs across the hangar towards her, Chewbacca on his heels, one hand raised to flag her down.

“Come on!”

She casts one last desperate look around the hangar for Luke before she lets him herd her into a second hangar. 

“What is it?”

The Millennium Falcon comes into sight. What does it say about the last forty-eight hours of her life that it feels a little like spotting home from a distance?

“There’s a TIE in the atmosphere,” Captain Solo says.

As soon as they hit the ramp, the sound of footsteps rings out behind them in the otherwise empty hangar. Luke and Leia sprint towards the Falcon, just like they had on the Death Star. All of the tension drains out of Beru’s body.

“Just one?”

Surely they would be able to take on a singular TIE Fighter without all this fuss.

“Not just any one,” Leia says darkly.

She pushes past them both, presumably heading for the cockpit. Luke grabs Beru’s hand, squeezes, releases.

“It’s Vader.”

Before, she might not have understood how those two words could get every last rebel up and moving in less than a minute. But the picture of him is seared into her brain. He’s larger in person than he looks on any holovid. And yet, despite the bulk, he’d been graceful, fluid, as he’d cut Kenobi down.

It’s easy to imagine him cutting his way through swathes of rebels in pursuit of his goal.

“What does he want?”

Despite the threat of space sickness, Beru follows them into the cockpit, watching with her heart in her throat as Captain Solo and Chewbacca move quickly through the start-up routine.

“Revenge,” Leia says quietly. “We dealt a major blow to the Empire today.”

Beru doesn’t miss the way her eyes flick to Luke.

* * *

The very last thing on Vader’s mind is revenge.

Frankly, he’s glad to see the Death Star destroyed and Tarkin with it. It had been a waste of time, money, and personnel. 

Not to mention any  _ child  _ that examined the technical readout could have identified the exhaust port as a weakness.

He might have wanted to shake the one-in-a-million pilot’s hand, even if said pilot weren't his son.

No matter how many times he thinks it, he gets a jolt like he’s putting the pieces together for the very first time all over again.

He has a  _ son. _

A child that is young yet, totally untrained—the way his presence nearly blots out the nearest star speaks to that. For whatever reason, Kenobi failed to train the boy, which means that his potential is wholly untapped, begging for corruption.

With his son by his side, his master does not stand a chance.

It’s taken him two hours to repair the damage that the blasted freighter from the Death Star had done to his TIE, but now he’s circling the atmosphere, reaching out with the Force, searching.

It won’t be long now. He’ll kill every last rebel that stands in his path on his way to collect his son.

He’ll slaughter the woman who stole his child from him right in front of Luke, and the anger should be more than enough to turn him.

Then, the galaxy will be theirs.

* * *

“How’d you know?” Beru asks as she and Luke run down the hallway, Luke headed for the turret and Beru for a good place to throw up.

“I can—I don’t know. Feel him?”

Beru makes a face. “What?”

Luke gestures uselessly as he slows to a halt in front of the guns. “He’s cold. I recognized the feeling from the Death Star, and when they checked, Leia was able to identify his TIE Fighter. Apparently it’s got some pretty cool modifications, like—”

He cuts himself off, probably realizing that he shouldn’t consider the Emperor’s attack dog’s TIE cool.

“Does it matter?” he finishes. “We’re gonna get out of here.”

He scrambles up to man the guns, leaving Beru standing by herself in the hallway. She can’t bring herself to sit where she’d sat on the way back from the Death Star. So after losing all of the alcohol into a bucket that she suspects Chewbacca left out for her, she staggers back to the cockpit.

“I can’t figure it out,” Captain Solo mutters as he takes the Falcon into a dive that nearly makes Beru lose her footing and her lunch.

“What?”

“He’s following us,” Leia answers, not taking her eyes off of the viewport.

Beru frowns. Does he want Leia, to execute her the way he’d wanted to? Or is it Han for damaging his ship?

Or can he feel Luke the same way Luke can feel him?

“Why aren’t we dead?”

Captain Solo jerks the ship to the left with all of his might. Beru falls into a seat and buckles herself into place.

“Because I’m a damn good pilot!”

Another twist of the Falcon. The ship shudders beneath them. Somehow, Leia still manages to roll her eyes.

“Look where he’s aiming.”

Beru doesn’t know much about starships, but she’s seen enough schematics for various machines around the farm for her to follow.

“That’s the—”

“Hyperdrive. And our weapons system.”

Vader isn’t trying to kill them. At least not yet. He’s trying to disable the Falcon.

Somehow, that feels worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vader has a weird brain to try to get into.
> 
> also, sidenote, I love playing with names--you'll have noticed before that Beru referred to Leia as Senator Organa right up until she was humanized to her. now, Han gets to be Captain Solo instead of Mr., because looking after Luke on the trench run makes him a pilot in her eyes.
> 
> (and poor Han still doesn't know what to call Beru)


	10. innocents

One shot to the hyperdrive is all that it takes to put an end to the freighter’s ridiculous escape. Vader leans back in his seat, more at ease tailing the old piece of junk than he has been in years.

Almost lazily, he flips the switch to hail them. Had he been able to stop breathing in anticipation, he might have, but the respirator keeps his breath slow and steady as always. There is a long dormant part of him that wonders, foolishly, if his son will sound like  _ her _ .

“What game is this, Vader?”

She’s dropped the title since their last conversation—no point to playing the humble humanitarian now.

“Princess Leia,” he greets. “Although perhaps another title is necessary, given that you have nothing to be princess of.”

Her rage flares; for a moment, the heat of it nearly eclipses the small sun that is his son’s presence in the Force. On another day, that might have piqued his interest, but he can’t care less about the princess right now.

“Alderaan isn’t just a place. It’s a people.” She manages to get her feelings under control. “I’ll ask again. What game is this?”

“Yeah,” says an unfamiliar voice. “Cause if you’re not gonna kill us, I’d like to be on our way.”

There’s a dull thump, a muttered ‘ow!’ and then silence.

“The boy. I wish to speak with him.”

The princess again: “What boy?”

Vader snarls behind the mask, but he manages to keep his voice steady, anyway. “You’re no better than lying now than you were on Tantive IV, princess.”

“Really? Because I seem to recall successfully resisting each and every mental probe you sent at me.”

She’s not wrong. The strength of her mental walls was matched most recently by the last enclave of Jedi he had captured, interrogated, and killed. Yet another moment that might have given him pause on another day.”

“You will land, and you will hand him over to me.”

“And you’ll just let us go on our merry way?” the same man from before scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

Vader isn’t quite sure how he knows, but he’s struck by the certainty that Leia Organa has just rolled her eyes.

“I believe we’ve arrived at an impasse,” she says with a smile in her voice. “From my point of view, you’ve got two options. First, let us go. Second, shoot us out of the sky.”

For someone talking about being blown up, she’s awfully calm.

“Of course,” she continues in the same careful voice that Vader imagines she used to use in meetings back in the Imperial Senate, “if you take the second option, you’ll never get what you want.”

* * *

Luke.

He wants Luke. Why?

It’s easy to see how Leia got elected to the Senate, even being as young as she is. Even as her slightly trembling hands betray her, her voice stays steady and even. There’s a flash of humor in it, too, a part of her that enjoys the sparring, helped along by Captain Solo’s antics.

Despite her goading, Vader doesn’t shoot them. Instead, he speaks into the comms again.

“Beru Whitesun.”

Beru’s stomach twists. Captain Solo swears under his breath, and Leia turns to her, mouth open. Even C-3PO’s metal face manages to look shocked. Somehow, she manages to lean forward and find her voice. 

“How do you know my name?”

Just that awful, steady breathing in response. Beru swallows, tries again.

“Your men killed my husband two days ago.”

She sounds far more confident than she feels.

“He deserved it.”

Beru lurches to her feet, but the seatbelt around her hips pulls her back into the seat in an ungainly heap.

“He didn’t do anything!” Beru howls.

“He was a kidnapper.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Get your  _ nephew  _ to speak to me.”

There is something in the way he says the word ‘nephew’ that doesn’t sound right. Beru glares, hoping that he’s somehow able to sense how much she hates him. 

“Like hell.”

Beru glances over her shoulder, hoping that Luke’s sixth sense will be able to keep him with Artoo and Chewie repairing the hyperdrive. Unfortunately, because the universe apparently hates her, Luke chooses that precise moment to round the corner.

“We’ve got it!”

He must notice the rasp of the respirator over the comms, because something in his face hardens.

“Is that—?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Leia shouts, whacking Han in the back of the head again.

She startles him out of whatever stupor he’s been trapped in. Han slams his hand down, and the Falcon roars to life.

* * *

The next planet the Rebellion settles on is just as green as Yavin. Beru can’t take her eyes off of it. Whenever she’s not in the kitchens—funny, her childhood dream had been to run a restaurant—she’s wandering through the woods.

They settle into a weird sort of routine over the next few weeks. Luke gets used to flying with the Red Squadron, trading in Beggar’s Canyon for something even more likely to give Beru a heart attack. Captain Solo takes to making the occasional supply run, telling them each time that he’ll leave after the next one is finished. Leia slips easily out of the role of a senator and into that of a general, so easily, in fact, that Beru suspects she’s much better trained for the latter. Beru watches from the sidelines as a quiet, easy friendship develops between the three of them.

Sometimes, she thinks that Luke and Leia can read each other’s minds with the way they think and sometimes speak in tandem.

Today, Leia looks up from the datapad in front of her, stifling a yawn. 

“I don’t know where he is,” she says, frowning. “He was flying some drills earlier this afternoon.”

Beru thanks her and heads toward the field that they’re currently using as a landing pad. The base hadn’t been quite operational when they’d arrived, thanks to how quickly they’d had to escape from Yavin.

But all she finds is a few unattended X-Wings. Wedge Antilles directs her on to a path into the woods that some of the ground troops have been using for training runs.

She finds Luke sitting at the edge of a river, his feet splashing in the water. Her worry softens into a smile.

“I didn’t think that there was this much water in the galaxy,” she says softly. “And it’s just sitting here. No one’s even using it.”

She tugs off her shoes and sits beside him. The water feels cool and soothing in a way that she hadn’t ever even dreamed it would back on Tatooine.

“Everything all right?”

When he was a kid, Luke would march off into the desert when he wanted to sort something out. Beru prefers to see him sitting by a river, but that doesn’t mean she’s any less worried about him.

“I’m just thinking.”

He splashes his feet back and forth a little.

Beru frowns. “About what?”

“They thought you were cleaning staff on the Death Star.”

Beru’s breath catches in her throat. She thinks she knows where he’s going with this.

“Which means that there had to be cleaning staff. Innocent people who were just looking for a job.”

She’s been thinking that, too. She’d hoped that Luke wouldn’t ever reach the same conclusion.

“Innocent people,” Luke continues, his voice growing louder and shakier with every word, “who probably came from planets just like Tatooine where they didn’t have any other choice!”

“Luke—”

“That could have been me! I could have been flying one of those TIEs or stationed on the detention level if you and Uncle Owen had let me go to the academy.”

His breath hitches and Beru realizes that he’s crying, muffling it slightly into his elbow. She grips his shoulder.

“ _ Luke. _ ”

“And everyone keeps calling me a hero, but how can I be if I killed innocent people?”

Beru’s hand on his shoulder tightens as she struggles to come up with the right words.

“Alderaan was full of innocents,” she points out. “They would have made an example out of a dozen more planets just like it. Would have killed even more people if you hadn’t acted.”

“Doesn’t that just prove that I’m no different than them?”

She shakes her head, her throat too constricted for a moment to get the words out.

“These prove you’re not the same, sweetheart,” she says quietly.

She reaches out with her free hand and softly brushes the tears away one by one.

“You did what you did because there wasn’t another right choice. The fact that you feel remorse? That’s how I know you’re nothing like them.”

He nods, once, and lets her fold him into her side as he cries out the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like someone like Luke would feel quite a lot of guilt for the Death Star. obviously it's something that was necessary, as Beru point out here, but I imagine it still causes some angst D:


	11. jam

“Are you sure about this?”

Luke sits at the end of her bed, legs kicking back and forth nervously, his serious eyes fixed on her as she packs. Sometimes, Leia gets the impression that he can read her mind. The same doubt has been chasing itself around her head all morning.

“I’m not going to be in any danger. Not any more than usual, anyway.”

She hadn’t asked Mon Mothma for permission, just her opinion, and the older woman seemed to think it would be all right. Less than three weeks after the destruction of Alderaan, the Empire couldn’t kill or capture their de facto leader without causing a PR fiasco.

(Privately, Leia thinks that they could avoid it by making her death appear like a tragic accident and then holding a ridiculous memorial in her honor on Coruscant, but she hasn’t mentioned it to anyone yet.)

“I’m not talking about danger,” Luke says dismissively, getting up from his perch to help her reach a belt that’s on the top shelf of her tiny closet. “I just mean, are you ready to go back?”

How does he always manage to surprise her?

“It’s not like I’m really going back.”

She stuffs a shoe on top of her pile before attempting to latch the case shut. Luke sits on the top while she fumbles for the latches.

“You’ll be able to see it,” Luke says bluntly.

He stares, unblinking, until she meets his eyes.

“I can see it from here,” Leia points out.

She finally gets the last button to snap closed. Luke scrambles off of the top and lands in an ungainly heap on her bed. Leia suspects it’s a ploy to make her laugh, but her mouth twitches anyway.

“The light reflected off of it is still travelling. I can still see it. At least up close it’s not pretending to still be there.”

It’s silly, but she can’t stand to look up at the stars, knowing that Alderaan still looks like it’s out there. It reminds her of her father showing her maps, teaching her that she can always see home.

Luke grabs her hands in his. “We’re going with you.”

She frowns. “They’ve got a bounty out for you.”

Well, there’s a bounty out for the destroyer of the Death Star. They don’t have a name yet, but Leia has been a member of the Alliance long enough to know that they’ll get it eventually.

“They’ll expect me to be in an X-Wing, not running a humanitarian mission,” Luke says, shaking his head.

She has a gut feeling that she can’t argue him out of the idea, so she lets him take her suitcase as they head for the hangar.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The only ship there is the Millenium Falcon, complete with its captain throwing her a mock salute from where he’s perched on the top of the ship, hammering something into place.

“He offered,” Luke says.

She’s going to kill whoever authorized this. Before she can open her mouth to tell Captain Solo that she’ll find her own pilot, Beru rounds the corner, two rucksacks thrown over one shoulder and a bucket in her other hand.

“Almost ready to go?”

She tosses one of the rucksacks at Luke, who slings it over his shoulder.

“You don’t have to come,” Leia says. “Really, both of you. I’ll be fine.”

Beru pretends she doesn’t hear. “Chewie, I brought my own bucket this time.”

Luke grins. “It’ll be nice to get off-base for a while. Besides, Aunt Beru and I have only ever been on three planets. It’ll be an adventure.”

Leia wants to tell him that it’ll probably end up being even more of an adventure than any of them had planned for, but Luke’s sunny smile throws her off.

“All right.”

She lets him tug her on to the ship, where Artoo and Threepio are already waiting. It’s sort of reassuring to see some familiar faces—well, not really a face in Artoo’s case, but still—from before.

“I thought the run to Mandalore was going to be your last for the Alliance,” Leia says as Captain Solo joins them on board.

“It’s like you’re trying to get rid of me,” he says, hand on his chest like he’s totally affronted.

Leia decides that she won’t follow him, Chewie, and Luke to the cockpit, so she makes herself comfortable with Beru and the droids.

“I think this will be good for you,” Beru says after a moment.

She still white-knuckles her bucket, but she doesn’t look quite as panicked at the idea of takeoff anymore.

“Good for me?”

It’s the first time she’s heard that. It must show in her face, because once Beru finishes putting the bucket to good use, she explains.

“Shared grief. All of the other people on Delaya are going through the same thing.”

Leia nods. One of the Red Squadron pilots that had been killed in the assault on the Death Star had been Alderaanean. Their brief conversation before the battle had been one of the most helpful she’s had so far.

“I hope you’re right,” Leia says at last, forcing herself to swallow past the lump in her throat.

Beru squeezes her hand.

* * *

They’re deep in the night cycle and deep in hyperspace, but Leia can’t sleep.

She slides out of her bunk, stifling a laugh at the sight of Luke nearby, wrapped in what looks like most of the blankets on board. He still hasn’t gotten used to the cold, then.

Unsure of what else to do, Leia takes one lap around the ship and then another, enjoying the dim lights and the soft hum of space travel. Nevermind what she told Luke. She’s not sure that she’s ready for this.

“Still up?”

She nearly jumps out of her skin.

Han grimaces. “Sorry.”

It’s the first apology that she’s heard from him that she thinks is genuine. That alone makes her relax.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she says at last.

After all, it doesn’t take a genius to deduce what is going through her head right now.

“You?”

He scratches the back of his neck. Leia’s eyes narrow. Is he nervous? Finally, Han clears his throat and pulls a small jar out of the pocket of his vest.

“I found this with the rations.”

He holds it out. Leia takes a few cautious steps forward to read the label. It’s not in Basic.

“Deeranberry jam?”

Han nods. “I—Chewie used to make fun of me for it, but every time we got anywhere near Alderaan, I stopped and got some.”

The to-do list starts assembling in her head as she stares down at the little jar. She needs to find a linguist, a writer, an editor, someone who can organize programs to make sure that the next generation of Alderaaneans can read and write their language. She needs a cook to assemble traditional recipes, a food scientist to figure out substitutes for the ingredients they won’t be able to get anymore. She needs—

“Hey, Your Worship!”

When she meets Han’s eyes, she gets the impression that he’s said her name—or some variation of it, anyway—a few times.

“I said, do you want some?”

Leia can do nothing but stare. “There’s probably only a few hundred jars left,” she says quietly. “It’s an unusual flavor. Not many offworlders like it.”

She can see him gearing up to say ‘well, princess, I’m anything but usual,’ but he restrains himself.

“So?”

“So, it belongs in a museum.”

They’ll need archivists and curators to gather art and literature and Force help her, she doesn’t know anything about poetry—

“Nobody can eat it if it’s in a museum.”

How can he not understand?

“Alderaan needs to be remembered,” she says, any of her composure slipping away from her as the words trip over each other and panic rises in her chest.

“That’s my point, Leia.”

The use of her name surprises her so much that the panic actually screeches to a confused halt.

“I think you need a little piece of home right now. So let’s eat some.”

Later, she won’t be able to explain why she lets him guide her to sit down. She takes the cracker spread with jam without protest. Leia doesn’t cry when she takes the first bite, but it’s a close thing. The cracker is stale and hard, nothing like the bread she baked with her parents as a child, but it’s enough.

He listens while she describes the minutest details of her home—the way her childhood bedroom looked illuminated by the setting sun, the sound of musicians by the river during festival season, the long afternoons reading with her parents in the library.

He wipes a little jam off her cheek before shooing her back to her bunk for a little sleep, but the next day, he’s back to teasing like nothing happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he sure does have an interesting way of flirting, doesn't he?


	12. sisterhood

Even Captain Solo is completely speechless as they exit the Falcon. Beru’s grip on Luke’s shoulder grows tighter and tighter. She can’t help it. She’s only seen people with those vague, empty stares in the slave markets the few times she’d been unlucky enough to witness them. Luke doesn’t shrug her off or protest. His eyes are fixed on Leia.

“We’ve tried to organize them by region,” says Deva Ta’Chik, the manager of the camp.

She’s brisk and no-nonsense in a way that Beru would ordinarily appreciate, but right now just seems callous.

“Any luck reuniting anyone?” Leia asks.

Ta’Chik sighs. “Not much, I’m afraid. A few neighbors, some coworkers, but not a lot of families. Most were offworld together, or—”

Leia nods. “Yes. I would know.”

For the first time in the conversation, Ta’Chik’s composure breaks. She places a gentle hand on Leia’s shoulder.

“Your mother was an incredible woman. And I admired the work your father did when he was a senator.”

For a wild moment, all Beru can think is that Luke and Leia’s parents must have known each other during the Clone Wars.

“They will be missed,” Leia says, her voice thick. Then, she brushes the emotions away. “Did anything of the government survive?”

Ta’Chik shrugs. “Depends. Do you consider one agricultural minister, two senators, and the Chief Justice’s niece to be a government?”

Leia sighs. “No. No I do not.” 

Beru doesn’t pretend to know much about politics, but even she knows that that’s hardly enough to pull together a government.

“What can I do?” Leia asks.

Ta’Chik fixes her with a stare. “We don’t want anything your Alliance can give us, Princess. I think Delaya has suffered enough for Alderaan’s sins, don’t you?”

Leia deflates. Luke finally disentangles himself from Beru’s grip and goes to stand beside her.

“What about just us, as people?”

Ta’Chik appraises him. “What do you know about first aid?” 

That’s how they end up in the first aid tent—as it turns out, a bunch of people trapped in close quarters require quite a bit of medical treatment. Beru falls into step with Luke easily. Back home, they’d had to treat a runaway slave every now and then. Luke has known how to stitch up wounds since he was eight years old.

Beru has to stifle a laugh at the sight of Chewbaca offering hugs to every child he comes across. Soon, he has three kids trying to scale him like a tree.

“I can’t understand you.”

Beru finishes wrapping up a superficial cut on a young woman’s hand before turning back to Luke. Her nephew is crouched on one knee in front of a little girl that is sobbing so hard that Beru is surprised that she can still manage to draw breath.

She stoops down, too, ignoring the way her knees twinge. If anything, the little girl just starts crying harder.

“It’s all right,” Luke says kindly. Then, “Do you want to see a trick?” 

Looking around to make sure no one is watching, Luke scoops up three pebbles from the ground. Then, he closes his eyes and furrows his brow. Beru actually lets out a gasp when the pebbles rise up to hover over his palm.

“I’ve been practicing what Ben taught me,” Luke says, reopening his eyes.

The moment he does, the pebbles fall back into his palm.

Beru’s mouth is still open. It was one thing for Kenobi to tell her that Luke had the same abilities as his father. It’s quite another to see them in action. 

“Pretty cool, huh?”

The comment isn’t directed at her, but the little girl, who has stopped crying out of interest.

“What’s wrong?”

She sniffles before saying, “Mamma!”

Beru swallows.

“I’m sure she’s around here some—” Luke begins.

Beru can see the moment that it registers. His mouth hardens into a thin line. It’s easy to forget, even standing here, in the middle of the camp. The enormity of Alderaan’s destruction defies thought. 

Even though there’s nothing on Tatooine for her to love anymore, the thought of it gone in the blink of an eye is still nauseating.

“Who’s here with you?”

She recovers first, trying to sound as soothing as possible. 

The little girl blubbers for a few seconds before she manages, “Auntie Mirna.”

Luke smiles. “She must be a good aunt. I know a thing or two about that.”

Some fear that Beru hadn’t even realized was sitting in the base of her stomach dissipates. Some part of her had thought that an adult Luke, no longer in need of a guardian, finally aware of his mother’s legacy and doing his best to emulate his father’s, would have no need of her anymore.

“Why don’t we find Auntie Mirna?” Beru says, offering the little girl her hand.

* * *

Everyone, it seems, wants to talk to her. As the only daughter of a queen and a beloved senator, Leia had grown up in the spotlight. This is something entirely different. Everyone wants to tell her about what they’ve lost, as if it’s not quite real until she’s heard it. Every story makes her feel just a little bit sicker until the afternoon vanishes into a haze of nodding slowly and murmuring apologies.

She makes it all the way to a group of children who had been on a field trip off-world before she breaks.

“Excuse me,” she tells their teary-eyed teacher, who Leia bets is about to launch into a list of his own.

She’s not sure where she’s heading when she ducks out of the tent. There’s a dozen just like it all around, full of mourners, too.

“Princess!”

It takes every last one of her considerable nerves not to flee the scene at the sound of her title. But when she turns around, it’s just Deva.

“Thank the Force.”

She allows her head to droop a little as she pinches the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb.

“It’s quite a lot to process,” Deva says sympathetically. “When we were staking the tents, I broke down. And it’s not like it was my home.”

Leia sighs. “What you’re—what the people of Delaya are doing is truly incredible.”

Relations between the sister worlds hadn’t always been pleasant. They’d improved quite a bit under the leadership of Leia’s mother, but they hadn’t been completely repaired.

“Your people would have done the same for us,” Deva says graciously. 

To Leia’s surprise, the other woman slings an arm around her shoulders.

“You’re probably exhausted. Why don’t we go sit in my quarters for a bit? It’ll be a nice distraction.”

She probably should refuse—Deva is a stranger, as much good as she’s done for the people of Alderaan—but she’s too tired. Deva could hand her over to Darth Vader and she wouldn’t mind.

She follows Deva to a tent that isn’t quite as tattered as the others. Had Deva tried this earlier in the day, Leia would have been furious that the Delayans with homes to return to eventually would take the best for themselves. Instead, she collapses in the chair that Deva directs her to.

“Tea?”

It won’t be traditional Alderaanian tea. Even only one planet away, Delaya has their own customs, their own food and drink. But something warm sounds lovely right now. 

“Yes, thank you.”

While Deva busies herself with the kettle, Leia glances around the tent. There isn't much in the way of personal artifacts. The only clue that Deva is its resident is the holo on the desk, featuring her as a girl with a man that Leia assumes is her father.

“Now that you’re here, we can get down to business.”

The first thrill of fear lodges itself in Leia’s stomach.

“What—”

She has one hand on her blaster when Deva turns around, her own blaster leveled at Leia’s chest. She slowly pulls her hand off of her weapon.

“Deva—”

“Which one of them is it?”

Leia stares. “What?”

“Which one of them is the Death Star pilot?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's an eighty percent chance that I have lifted some of this plot from the only star wars book that I read as like an eight year old.
> 
> whoops?


	13. bounty

“She’s been gone a while, hasn’t she?”

Han isn’t in the business of tracking the princess’ every move—that would be ridiculous—but he’s been keeping an eye on her ever since they landed on Delaya. He has no idea how she’s doing it. He couldn’t possibly face the onslaught of grief she’s been staring down all day.

“Probably with Ms. Ta’Chik,” Mrs. Lars says.

Beside him, Luke jolts, like he’s just grabbed hold of one of the many exposed wires on the Falcon. Han might not believe in any of that Jedi mumbo-jumbo, but the kid’s instincts have helped before. Trusting your gut ain’t just for crazy people like Ben Kenobi, after all.

“Something isn’t right.”

The words unlock a sense of unease in Han’s gut that was apparently waiting for permission to burst out. Even Mrs. Lars seems a little disquieted as she gets to her feet. Chewie makes a mournful noise in the back of his throat.

“Yeah, I know what Mothma said,” Han snaps. “Come on.”

He leads the way out of the tent and into the darkness of the camp. Delaya has a shorter night cycle than he’s used to.

“If something happened to her,” Luke begins.

“She can take care of herself, kid,” Han says sharply.

He’s not sure which one of them he’s trying to convince.

A little voice in the back of Han’s head tells him to let Luke lead their little group, so he slows his pace. That little voice has gotten him out of quite a few scrapes, after all. The kid looks like he’s just taking random turns, but there’s a purpose to his stride that says otherwise.

There is entirely too much worry clogging Han’s chest for someone who still owes Jabba the credits Kenobi had promised. Even this little detour is a waste of his time. It’s not like the rebellion is handing out checks every two weeks.  _ Something _ is keeping him from making the smart choice.

Luke takes such an abrupt left that Han nearly crashes into his back. Sensing a bit of danger, he pulls his blaster from its holster as he follows Luke.

“Here.”

Luke gestures more than speaks, bringing them all to a halt in front of the only tent that Han has seen so far that doesn’t have at least three patches on the door flap.

They all strain their ears for evidence that Leia is in there before they go in guns blazing.

Finally: “So take me, and leave them alone.”

Han lets out a roar and charges through the entry.

* * *

“I see that you’ve adopted our name for Project Stardust.”

If Leia ever gets back to the Alliance, Mon Mothma will be very glad to hear that their propaganda efforts are catching on.

“We’re no friends of the Empire here,” Deva says, her eyes narrowing. “Seeing that station blow up our next door neighbor—no matter how irritating—made sure of that.”

Leia glares. “Then surely you were pleased to see it destroyed. Surely you owe the pilot.”

She’s felt it these last few weeks—a collective sigh of relief across the galaxy. Whether systems supported the Alliance didn’t seem to matter. Everyone was happy to see the Death Star destroyed.

“Certainly,” Deva says smoothly. “But that doesn’t change the bounty.”

Leia’s mouth goes dry. She’s seen the bounty, of course. With that money, Luke could go back to Tatooine and buy the whole planet. The Red Squadron has been ribbing him about it for a week.

“What do you need a bounty for?”

Deva scoffs. “Princess, I’m living in a tent. Not that I would expect you to understand.”

Leia wants to snarl something about the number of foxholes she’s seen, but she restrains herself.

“Besides. That money would help your precious refugees. It might even be enough to stop Delaya’s economy from crumbling under the strain of so many needy—”

“We have money,” Leia says before realizing her mistake.

Deva’s eyes glint. “So it  _ is _ one of them. Not the Wookiee—he couldn’t fit in the cockpit of an X-Wing. I can’t imagine the old woman shooting down a Skyhopper. So which is it? The spacer or the kid?”

“It’s not either of them,” Leia says.

Deva thumbs at the safety on her blaster. Knowing full well that it’s a terrible idea, Leia rolls her eyes. She’s been tortured, forced to watch her planet explode. And this woman thinks she can frighten her with a nice, clean death?

“You know,” Deva says, “the bounty asks for the pilot alive. But I can’t imagine they’d object if he were dead. Maybe I’ll just kill them both.”

That gets her attention. For a moment, she’s back on the bridge of the Death Star and Vader’s durasteel grip is bruising her shoulders and Tarkin is far, far too close and Alderaan hangs perfect and innocent in the sky and she’s willing to give up the cause she’s spent four years serving but she can’t—

Leia rips herself free of the memory.

“What about me?”

It’s not much leverage, considering she’s already at Deva’s mercy, but she has to try. She’s only known Luke for three weeks, but he’s already managed to worm his way into her heart in a way that very few have managed.

Deva raises an eyebrow. “What about you, exactly?” 

“They’ve got a bounty out for me, too,” Leia points out. “It won’t have been released yet because the public is too sympathetic towards me at the moment. If they’re smart—and there are a few good brains in their leadership, believe me—they’ll pin something on me in a few weeks. An Alliance move, maybe, or something they fabricate. Then they’ll release it. But I can’t imagine they’d object if you handed me in early.”

Deva narrows her eyes as she thinks over the offer. Leia stares back, careful to keep her eyes locked on Deva’s. It’s one thing for her to threaten Han and Luke, out of sight and mind. It’s another to stare down your own victim.

“Cashing in my bounty won’t be quite as lucrative, I don’t think. But it might be enough. Just enough.”

It’s not the worst way to go out, really. Protecting Luke and Han, giving what she can to the last remnants of Alderaan. There are worse things.

“So take me, and leave them alone.”

She’s ready for Deva to agree when the tent flap blows open and Han Solo launches himself through. Leia has never been so glad to see him in her life.

With Deva’s attention distracted, Leia throws herself out of the chair and on to the ground, rolling until she has her hand on her blaster and a sheltering place behind the desk.

Luke lands beside her, grinning.

“No more danger than usual, huh?”

It’s the nature of his smile that she can’t help herself from grinning back at him.

“Seems pretty typical to me.”

How sad is it that it’s true?

He offers her a hand up, and they end up back to back, dodging blaster bolts in sync like they’ve been doing it for years. Deva must have had friends nearby in case she’d decided to yell for help.

“We can’t let them near the refugees,” Leia says sharply.

It’s a little late, already. The thin walls of the tent won’t stop blaster bolts. If any of these people get caught in the crossfire—

Footsteps, outside, like she hasn’t heard since Tantive IV.

“Go!”

She grabs Luke by the hand and hauls him towards the back of the tent, just as a half dozen stormtroopers burst through the tent flap.

“There!” yells Deva, pointing at both Han and Luke.

She opens her mouth to say something else, but Han clocks her over the head with his blaster.

Leia doesn’t stick around to see what happens to her. Instead, she drags Luke back out into the night.

“What are they doing?” Luke yelps.

He tries to turn around to get a better look at the troopers, but Leia digs her nails into his wrist and refuses to slow her pace long enough for him to manage it.

“They’re looking for you,” Leia snaps. “Come on. We’ve got to get back to the Falcon.”

She doesn’t look behind them to see if Beru, Chewbacca, or Han are following. They’re not what matters right now.

Luke’s bounty calls for his capture, not his death. She knows perfectly well what he can expect in Imperial custody. Well, too bad. Leia Organa won’t let them have him.

But when a surge of cold so powerful it nearly knocks her over races down her spine, she realizes what she wants might not matter.


	14. doors

“Nope,” says Han Solo, backing down the narrow alley between tents that he’d run down only a few moments before. “Nope, nope, nope.”

He’d had the dubious pleasure of seeing that hulking figure on the Death Star. Up close, he’s somehow even more terrifying. They are so going to die.

“What?” Mrs. Lars hisses.

Han gives her a good shove into the nearest tent. Then, he topples in after her. It’s for supplies, he thinks, based on the boxes piled around them.

“Keep your voice down!”

Finally, he hears it. Han squeezes his eyes shut. He’s much more the fight than the flight kind of guy, but the sound of the respirator makes his heart rabbit against his ribcage like it’s trying to make a break for it.

He jumps violently when he feels something brush his hand, but it’s just Mrs. Lars tightening her grip until he’s considering where the best place to get a cybernetic replacement is. They remain there, huddled and trying to keep their own, unregulated breathing as steady and quiet as possible until they can’t hear him anymore.

“What’s he want with the kid?” Han demands as they finally emerge from the tent.

“Well, he killed all of the—duck down, please.”

Han ducks down without argument, nearly jumping out of his skin when a blaster bolt almost grazes his skull.

“He killed Luke’s father and the rest of the Jedi. So I imagine he’s trying to finish the job.”

Han thinks back to what Chewie said—trust a Jedi’s instincts. 

What exactly has he gotten himself into?

Before he can ask another question, he has to take a moment to pull Mrs. Lars out of the way of a stormtrooper’s sights.

“Do you really think that he’s—”

“On your right.”

Han jerks left just in time to narrowly avoid a shot. This is getting ridiculous.

“Yes,” Mrs. Lars says as she sidesteps a shot of her own. “I do. I didn’t before, but—”

Han yanks her to the right as the Falcon finally, blessedly, comes into sight up ahead of them.

This is so not worth the credits he’d been promised.

* * *

“You can feel it, too,” Luke breathes.

They’re hidden among a mass of trembling refugees, Leia’s promise to herself not to endanger any of them broken the moment she realized who else was here. She’s thrown her hood over her telltale braids, and her grip on Luke’s shoulder keeps him ducked down out of sight.

“Yeah, I can.”

She remembers, suddenly, the first and only time she’d ever seen the emperor in person. She’d been little—six or seven, maybe—and her parents had been invited to Coruscant for Empire Day activities. (A part of her wonders, now, if their involvement in the rebellion had been suspected, even back then.)

They’d gone to the palace, and Leia had been struck by the absolute certainty that something horrible had happened there. She’d cried so hard that her mother had taken her to the back of the massive throne room to calm her. Leia had only quieted when he’d entered the room, so cold and suffocating that he’d stolen all the air from her lungs.

Afterward, her father had taught her a trick to keep the cold out. Now, Leia has the beginnings of a suspicion that it might be more than just a trick.

Luke reaches to the place on his belt where Leia knows he keeps his father’s lightsaber.

“Are you joking?” she hisses, slapping his hand away from it.

“He killed—”

“I don’t care!” Leia snaps back. “You have no idea what you’re doing with that thing! You’d be just as likely to take your own head off.”

Luke splutters something about how he won’t decapitate himself, but Leia isn’t listening anymore. The cold feeling surges enough that Luke’s argument trails off, his eyes widening.

“You need to try this for me.”

Luke’s eyes dart around the crowd, never landing in one place for very long. When Leia speaks, they finally land on her.

“You need to picture a durasteel door. The most sturdy one that you can think of.”

If he doubts her advice, he doesn’t show it. Luke screws his eyes shut. Leia wonders what he’s thinking of.

“Slam it shut and lock it.”

Leia can feel it the moment he manages it. If she’d felt cold before, she’s freezing now. As if Luke’s presence were keeping her warm. Leia closes her own door, but the cold doesn’t relent.

“We’ve got to get moving,” she says at last. “Come on.”

* * *

It’s difficult to track the boy. From the bridge of the Devastator, he’d been able to tell that Ta’Chik had been telling the truth. But here, on the ground, he can’t pinpoint his child’s exact location. His presence spreads all over the camp.

Fine. He’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way.

His latest captain, promoted after the tragic early suffocation of his predecessor, gives him a strange look as he accompanies Vader to the shuttle, but he doesn’t say a word.

Maybe he’ll bother to learn this one’s name.

Vader doesn’t even ignite his lightsaber as he stalks through the camp. The refugees have the same dull look in their eyes that he recognizes from the slave trade back on Tatooine. Too pathetic to bother with. Besides, they part like water when they see him coming.

Anticipation builds in his chest. On the Death Star, the realization had been too quick for him to feel much of anything. Above it, he’d been too preoccupied by preventing the TIE fighters from killing the boy.

Admittedly, he doesn’t have much of a plan. He’ll have to kill his son’s companions, of course—the princess, the pilot of that ridiculous freighter, the Wookiee, and of course his so-called aunt. It’ll probably be easiest to knock him out after that.

After all, there will be plenty of time to undo Kenobi’s lies later, once they’re somewhere his master will never think to look.

He takes one turn after another, letting the Force guide his path. If it’s even possible, the bright flare of his son’s power grows brighter with every step.

And then—nothing. His presence is gone.

The lightsaber ignites.

* * *

Beru doesn’t start breathing properly until Luke careens into her side, dragging Leia along with him. She sweeps them both up into a hug.

“All right, all right, speed up the reunion unless you want to get thrown against the wall.”

At this point, this is practically a routine for them. Beru hurls herself down into the chair that she’s begun to think of as hers and buckles in.

“Do you ever manage to take off without getting shot at?” she hears Leia shout at Captain Solo.

“Whose fault is it that I keep getting shot at, huh?”

Beru grips the table as they make the jump, silently swearing to never leave the Alliance’s base again.

* * *

The entire bridge likely would have been destroyed had it not been for the timely appearance of the same captain from before with a datapad.

“My lord. The information you requested.”

Ordinarily, he’d dispose of everyone who had been involved in the research, but he appreciates competence for its rarity. Vader takes the datapad and vanishes into his quarters.

He won’t ever admit it, but if his hands had still been able to tremble, they would have been shaking. He doesn’t even know the boy’s name.

For once, he’s bemoaning the lack of anywhere to sit in his rooms. Instead, he stands in the middle of the floor, staring at the datapad.

Luke.

The name she’d wanted. The datapad creaks under his fingers, but he manages to pull himself together before he shatters it.

There isn’t much information. Luke grew up on Tatooine, after all, which is hardly a planet known for its record keeping. All he has are a few report cards, a birth certificate that was very clearly forged—he’s fairly certain that the fake signature in the corner is Kenobi’s, and the thought makes a light above his head explode—a newspaper clipping, and what looks like a school photo.

He loses interest in the report cards fairly quickly. They establish that the boy—Luke, he reminds himself—is clever enough. They also establish that he stopped attending school at fifteen, probably to work on that damned moisture farm. Vader dearly wishes that he could resurrect Owen Lars just to kill him a second time.

He tosses the birth certificate aside without much fanfare. The newspaper clipping doesn’t give him any information that he hadn’t had already. Apparently, Luke had won a speeder race a few years ago, but he could deduce his son’s propensity for flying from his trench run above the Death Star.

In the end, the photo is the only thing that truly holds his interest. It is a few years out of date, but he can still recognize the face from the Death Star. He can’t help himself but search that face for any recognizable feature of Padmé’s.

It’s difficult. His memories before the dark are fuzzy. He most clearly remembers her face twisted in pain. It doesn’t help the comparison.

In the end, he commits all the information to memory and destroys the datapad. Now comes the difficult part.

His master can’t ever be allowed to realize that the Death Star pilot is Anakin Skywalker’s son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, good luck with that, Vader.
> 
> I had fun connecting Beru and Vader there--they both thought of the slave trade when they saw the refugees! we also got a bit of Force-sensitive Leia :D


	15. the colors of naboo

Beru’s plan to keep herself—and, more importantly, Luke—on base for the rest of time is successful for approximately a month.

She falls into a quiet routine on Home One once she gets her space legs. She bunks with a woman named Jemma Dion, who is anywhere from twenty to forty years older than her. It’s hard to tell. Beru isn’t entirely sure what species she is, either. She looks human, but if you catch her out of the corner of your eye, something seems off. By the time she works up the nerve to ask, it’s a little too awkward to actually do it.

Beru joins Jemma in the kitchens. There usually aren’t as many supplies as the staff would like—Beru can’t help but think of poor Biggs’ lean face—but they make do. She raised a family on Tatooine, after all. If there is anything Beru Whitesun Lars knows how to do, it’s stretch rations.

She still waits with a tight chest whenever Luke goes up in his X-Wing, but there haven’t been any battles in a while. Leia says the rebels are testing the waters, seeing how many systems they can get to back them after the destruction of the Death Star. Luke spends most of his time escorting transports, including one Millenium Falcon and her disgruntled captain. (Beru has taken to rolling her eyes whenever Captain Solo says he’s going to leave. She has eyes, after all. His pining is painfully obvious.)

Despite the relative peace of it all, Beru can’t seem to settle. Sometimes, she misses her husband and her home and her old life so fiercely that it feels as if someone has kicked her in the chest. Other days, Tatooine feels every bit as far away as it is.

She’s in the middle of chopping vegetables for a stew when the door to the kitchen flies open and Luke charges inside.

“I’ve got shore leave next week.”

Beru stares. She’s aware that the rebels get a break every now and then—in a high pressure situation like the one they’re in constantly, they’d probably lose their minds if they didn’t—but she hadn’t expected that to extend to wanted men.

“You’ve got a bounty on your head,” Beru sys patiently in the same voice she’d used to use when reminding Luke of his chores.

Luke rolls his eyes. “A bounty without a name attached isn’t much of a bounty, Aunt Beru.”

He has a point. Despite Vader’s supernatural ability to track her nephew down, it doesn’t appear that the Empire knows the identity of the Death Star pilot just yet.

Luke continues as if she hadn’t spoken. “I want you to come with me.”

Beru sets her knife aside and wipes her hands on the scrap of cloth that’s serving as her apron.

“Where do you want to go?”

Luke lights up. “Leia says that we’re going to be near the Naboo system soon. The queen is apparently a sympathizer, but she hasn’t authorized any official aid yet. Leia is going to talk to her.”

Oh. Beru has a feeling she knows where this is going.

“I want to see my mother’s grave.”

Beru has a million arguments against the idea, but the second she sees the look on Luke’s face, they all fall apart. She misses Owen and his practical gruffness so much that it’s like a physical feeling in her chest.

He would have been able to say no, and he wouldn’t have felt the need to explain himself, either.

“When do we leave?”

* * *

Beru has never seen so many people in one place in her entire life. Sure, Mos Eisley got a little crowded from time to time, and the refugee camp on Delaya had been bustling, but this is something else entirely.

There are so many colors.

The sun above them is soft—it’s not bleaching the colors from their clothing or the buildings—so it seems like every time she manages to tear her eyes away from one new color, she spots another.

“It’s beautiful,” Luke murmurs.

Beru nods, unable to find the right words to respond. In another life, Luke grew up here. He never had to fiddle with vaporator parts until his fingers bled, never had to leave school during a particularly horrible harvest year, never had to keep watch for a raid late at night. She doesn’t regret the life that she and Owen gave him. They did the best they could. But it’s nothing compared to what might have been.

“Come on,” Luke says, grabbing her by the hand. “Looks like the palace is that way.”

Right. The palace, Beru thinks faintly. Because Padmé Amidala was a queen. It all feels like something out of a fairy tale—a queen, a knight, and a tragedy.

A tragedy that gave her Luke. No matter how much she hates herself for thinking that way, Beru can’t help it. There is a part of her that will always be glad that Luke didn’t grow up with silk sheets and coddling nannies and frustrated tutors because it meant she got him.

“Do you think she had a family?” Luke asks suddenly as they round the corner into a market.

Somehow, Beru never thought about it. She and Owen are— _ were _ , she reminds herself harshly—only children, and all five of their parents had been dead by the time they’d gotten Luke.

“I suppose.”

Padmé’s parents could still be alive. She might have had siblings with children of their own by now. 

“Do you think—” Luke pauses as he tries to gather his thoughts. “Do you think they’d be happy to know that I lived?”

Beru nods, throat tight. “Yes. I think they’d be very happy.”

Luke squares his shoulders. “When the war is over, once I won’t be putting them in danger, I’ll come back and meet them.”

They take another turn and the palace comes into view. Or, Beru assumes it’s the palace, anyway. It’s the largest building she’s ever seen. The gardens in the back are open to the public. Luke leads Beru through the gates like he’s walked the path a thousand times. Beru knows better than to question it by now.

The noise from the market dies away, muffled by tall, well-groomed hedges. They’re the only people in sight. It should be eerie, but the quiet sound of a fountain bubbling breaks the silence.

Beru and Luke share a disgusted look, both incapable of understanding how anyone could ever justify keeping clean water around as a decoration.

“Do you know where it is?” Beru asks, barely louder than the sound of the fountain.

Luke shakes his head. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Silently cursing Ben Kenobi for teaching her nephew the fine art of sounding stupidly cryptic, Beru dubiously follows him deeper into the gardens.

Finally, he comes to a halt in front of a mausoleum. Despite the fact that they’ve walked past a dozen of them so far—Beru assumes that they hold the other past leaders of Naboo—Luke seems to know that they’ve reached their destination even before they can read her name etched into the stone.

Beru imagines the pretty, soft-spoken woman who’d helped Anakin Skywalker cradle his mother’s body entombed inside. It’s not fair.

But when, says a voice in her head that sounds like Owen, has the galaxy ever been fair?

“Can you—can you feel something?” Beru ventures.

Luke nods. “Grief.” At the look on her face, he backpedals. “Not mine. I mean—in addition to mine.”

Beru squeezes his shoulder and walks around to the front of the tomb. There’s stained glass, backlit from the inside to be visible from the outside. Beru’s breath catches in her throat.

“Is she—?”

Luke takes a step forward. His hand hovers over the glass, but doesn’t touch.

“Her funeral.”

She’s painted with flowers in her hair, her eyes closed as if she’s just sleeping. But there’s one feature that draws both of their attention.

“She’s still pregnant.”

Beru puts her arm around his shoulders and pulls him in. He tucks as easily into her side as he had as a child.

“When Ben Kenobi came to us with you, I thought he looked like he was running from something.” 

Maybe he’d had something to do with that deception. It certainly wouldn’t surprise Beru.

Luke frowns. “He brought me to you?”

It’s hard to believe that they’d never told him the story before. But then again, Owen had wanted to keep Kenobi as far away from Luke as possible.

She nods. “He told me once that he was with your mother when she—when she died.”

They stand there in silence, staring up at Luke’s mother’s face painted above them. When Beru catches movement out of the corner of her eye, her heart leaps into her throat.

“Padmé?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is weirdly timed for mother's day. sorry, Padme.
> 
> I'm finally more than one chapter ahead of you guys in my writing, and all I've got to say is that this sequence is very much the calm before the storm...


	16. mothers

The throne room reminds Leia so strongly of home that her steps very nearly falter when she crosses the threshold. If the queen notices, she doesn’t say a word. She’s young under all that makeup. Thirteen, fourteen, maybe. Leia wonders if this is how the senators had felt when she’d taken the floor for the first time at sixteen.

They’re all too young, but there’s nobody else to do the job.

Leia dips into a respectful curtsey. Her mother’s voice echoes in her ears, telling her where to put her feet, her hands.

“Your Highness.”

The queen inclines her head at her handmaidens and guards. “You may leave us.”

And then it’s just them in the sunlight-soaked throne room. A light breeze drifts through the window, carrying the gentle scent of the garden outside with it. Leia is distracted by the thought of Luke searching for his mother’s grave for a moment before she refocuses on the situation at hand.

Once the door closes, she speaks. “I appreciate the risk that you’ve taken in speaking with me, your Highness.”

After what had happened on Delaya—the holovids of the aftermath of the massacre will be burned into Leia’s memory as long as she lives—she’d sworn off diplomatic missions. Mon Mothma had convinced her to take this one on. She’d been convinced that the queen would be most likely to listen to someone who she considered a peer.

“You recognize, of course, the difficulties of my position,” Queen Tia says quietly.

“I do. My father knew the emperor quite well during the Clone Wars.”

Leia had always thought that Bail Organa had partially blamed himself for the rise of the Empire. His very first vote in the Senate as a young man had been to instate Palpatine as chancellor. He’d ensured that Leia knew everything there was to know about the man n the hopes of finding an exploitable weakness someday.

She’ll never understand how something so disgusting could come from such a lovely place.

“He didn’t allow his connection to the man stop him from doing the right thing,” Leia continues.

“And he paid dearly for it.”

Leia bites down on the inside of her cheek, hard. “If you help us, you can prevent others from sharing his fate.”

“Or resign Naboo to it. I think you and I both know the emperor harbors no secret affection for his home world.”

That’s fair. As far as Leia knows, he’s been too busy these last twenty years enjoying his seat of power on Coruscant to even consider returning home.

“Your planet has a legacy of opposing violence, your Highness. I believe it was Senator Amidala that spearheaded the campaign to prevent the Military Creation Act.”

And the rebellion, but Leia suspects that Tia neither knows nor cares about that fact.

Tia raises an eyebrow. “Her legacy has power here, princess. You’ve done your research well. But I will not put my people into harm’s way for the sake of a woman who died before either of us was born.”

Leia frowns. Queen Tia is proving to be a harder sell than she’d hoped.

“What about your legacy, your Highness?”

The first flicker of doubt crosses Queen Tia’s face. This time, when Leia bites the inside of her cheek, it’s to keep from smiling.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tia says carefully.

“When we win—and I can assure you, Queen Tia, we will win—you’re going to be in history classes.”

The queen’s mouth twists, and Leia remembers again just how young she is. She almost wishes that she didn’t have to do this.

“My people won’t get the privilege of being remembered.”

Leia nods. “Not individually. But I think they’ll want the Naboo to be remembered as a people that stood up to injustice.”

Tia lets out a breath, the painted frown around her mouth growing deeper.

“You presume too much, Leia Organa,” she says at last.

“Or,” Leia says, “I presume precisely the right amount.”

It’s a long, painful second before Tia finally responds. “You will have your aid, princess. I’ll discuss it with your leadership over a secure comms network.”

Leia dips into her curtsey again.

“You won’t regret this, your Highness.”

Queen Tia sighs again. “I feel that I will, princess. But it is better than regretting doing nothing.”

Her eyes drift to a painting that Leia hadn’t noticed before. Queen Amidala stares down at the both of them, not quite smiling but not quite frowning, either.

Leia has the distinct feeling that she’d be pleased to know that Naboo has joined the fight.

* * *

Luke jerks around at the sound of his mother’s name, but Beru can’t get any other words out. She only knew Padmé Amidala for a few hours, but the woman carrying a bucket of water is precisely what she imagines the woman would look like a quarter century later.

Had Ben Kenobi been lying about Luke’s mother being dead?

Padmé smiles. “I haven’t been called that in a very long time.”

Beside her, Luke can’t seem to form words. Beru clears her throat and tries to figure out how to proceed.

“I—do you remember—I mean, Luke is—do you know—?”

The woman’s face softens. “I’m Sabé. I was one of Queen Amidala’s handmaidens.”

Beru doesn’t need the Force to notice the way that Luke slumps in his disappointment. But there’s still a little hope in his eyes at the sight of someone who had known his mother.

Sabé glances over both of them appraisingly. “Did you know her?”

Beru shrugs. “I only met her once, but she was kind.”

Sabé smiles. “She was. Really, the only politician I’ve ever actually liked.”

She kneels down and dips her hand into the bucket. She withdraws with a soapy rag in hand.

“I met her when I was thirteen,” Sabé says quietly.

She turns her attention to the graffiti on the side of the tomb. Beru hadn’t given it a second glance before, but now she notices that it’s not in whatever the language is on Naboo, but in Basic: rebel scum.

Luke’s eyes latch on to it. “Why are they writing that?”

Sabé appraises them for another long moment. Beru gives her the tiniest of nods—a signal that they’re safe. To her surprise, Sabé nods back.

“Queen Amidala would have been no friend to the Empire, I can assure you of that.”

Luke’s eyes are huge.

“She didn’t want the Republic to create an army. She saw a war that would destroy us in the future, and she was right.”

Beru doesn’t remember much about the Clones Wars. They’d left Tatooine untouched—no worse off, and certainly no better. But she remembers clearly the first time she saw white-armored troopers and knew that the world had changed. 

“But they knew she’d be a threat. We got to see the autopsy. Not a scratch on her but bruising around the throat. It must have been poison or something once they realized they wouldn’t be able to shut her up. But the baby—” Her voice breaks. “She had a lot of work left to do. And they knew it, so they killed her.” 

Beru shakes her head. Both of Luke’s parents had been too young to die. Only a little older than Luke is now.

“We’re with them,” Luke says suddenly, and every muscle in Beru’s body tenses. “The rebellion, I mean. I think you should leave it.”

He has that cool, steady look in his eyes, the same one he used to get when he was accurately predicting sandstorms. Sure enough, Sabé doesn’t look as if she’s going to turn them in. She smiles instead.

“What?” Sabé asks.

“The graffiti,” Luke says, motioning at it. “Sounds to me like she’d be proud to be seen as an enemy of the Empire.”

Beru expects to see sadness in his face, but there’s nothing but pride there.

Sabé pauses, hand still extended with her soapy rag. Then, she braces her free hand on her knee and rises gracefully out of her crouch.

“I think she would, too.” 

She nods respectfully at the tomb, then turns neatly on her heel and walks away.

“I think she’d be proud of you,” Beru says, wrapping an arm around Luke’s shoulders.

He smiles. “Yeah. And I’d bet she’d be grateful to you for looking out for me.”

Beru smiles at the woman captured in the stained glass.

“Yeah. I hope she is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, I love Leia invoking her mother's legacy without realizing it.
> 
> next chapter: the empire strikes back :D
> 
> or D: depending on how you look at it!


	17. desert ghosts

The weeks start to blur into months. Beru cooks with Jemma at her side and demands the name of every person she serves her food to until she can reliably name nearly every person on whatever base they’re stationed on. She rolls her eyes with Luke while Leia and Captain Solo bicker. She runs a few missions when there aren’t enough hands and surprises everyone she meets with her steady aim.

She gives up on convincing Luke that it’s better to settle down on one of the many beautiful green planets they pass by.

Beru keeps exactly one thing from Tatooine: her chrono, which stays set to Tatooine time. It’s how she knows the day is coming.

“Luke!”

She finds him sitting in the mess surrounded by the newly-renamed Rogue Squadron. Predictably, they’re goofing off. Beru can’t help but smile at that. They remind her of Luke’s friends back home.

“Everything all right?” he greets, eyes narrowing in concern.

The other squadron members greet her with scattered, “Hey, Aunt Beru!”s.

Luke frowns when she doesn’t immediately respond.

“I’ll see you guys later, okay?”

He pushes his chair back and leads her out of the mess and down the hallway. It’s always a little hard to find a private place to talk on Home One, but Luke has a knack for it. He comes to a halt near a viewport not far from the engine room. The steady thrum reminds Beru that she’s in space, and her stomach flips. Old habits.

“Are you all right?”

She lets out a breath. “Luke. It’s almost been a year.”

His face softens, the concern dripping away until only sadness is left.

“I forgot. I can’t believe I forgot.”

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.”

It’s been easy to fall into life here. But there’s something she needs to do.

“He needs his death rites.”

Luke glances sharply at her. “You can’t be serious.”

The old slave stories say that when a spirit’s loved ones don’t return to its final resting place within the year, the spirit is doomed to roam the desert, alone. Beru isn’t sure how many of those stories she believes, but it doesn’t feel right to leave him alone out there.

“I am.”

Besides, Beru misses him. When she turns over in her sleep and there’s no one on the other side of the mattress, it feels like someone has ripped out her lungs and left her chest bloody and gaping.

If she sets Owen to rest the Tatooine way, maybe the wound will finally start to heal.

“They’ve got a bounty out on you!”

Jemma had laughed herself silly when the rebellion had gotten word of that. Beru had stumbled back to their quarters after a long day only to find the place papered in her wanted poster.

“That’s never stopped you before,” Beru reminds him.

Her blood pressure increases every time the amount on his bounty does.

“I’ve never gone home!”

Beru crosses her arms.

“Exactly! Who would ever expect us to do that?”

It’s precisely the sort of borderline-stupid move that Leia likes to suggest. Maybe Beru should have gone to her first. She’s good backup in an argument with Luke.

“They’re smart,” Luke begins, but Beru cuts him off.

“They don’t know anything about the Outer Rim. None of them have ever given a damn about Tatooine’s people. Especially not about slaves. They don’t know our ways!”

She expects Luke to agree to come with her. But the hotheaded boy that wanted to go to Alderaan to avenge his uncle is gone. She can see it in his face. Beru wonders how she didn’t notice before.

“It’s too dangerous, Aunt Beru. Besides, it’s not important enough to risk—”

Beru turns sharply to face the stars. There aren’t any planets in sight. Like she often does when they’re in deep space, Beru feels lost and untethered. She wants to feel solid ground beneath her feet and twin suns beating down on her neck. She just wants home.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Luke grabs her by the elbow and turns her gently away from the viewport. Beru meets his eyes—blue like his father’s, the only feature she really remembers of Anakin Skywalker’s. He’s chasing his father’s legacy all over the galaxy because he was a hero. But he can’t even go home for the man that raised him.

“Didn’t he mean anything to you?” Beru snaps.

Hurt flashes over his face.

“Of course he did. But you mean something to me, too. And if you go back to Tatooine, I’m afraid that something is going to happen to you,”

Beru shakes her head.

“That’s not for you to decide.”

She yanks her arm free and stalks back to the kitchens.

* * *

There is one tiny snag in Beru’s plan. She has absolutely no idea how to pilot a ship. The good news is that she knows precisely who to ask for help

Artoo beeps mischievously—she hadn’t thought it was possible for a droid to sound mischievous, much less in binary, before she met him—at the idea. Threepio requires a bit more coaxing.

“I’m just not sure I’m qualified to help, Mistress Beru,” he says worriedly.

Beru pinches the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb. The thought of having to listen to him blather all the way to Tatooine is giving her a headache.

“Of course you are. Would I be asking for your help if I didn’t think you were up to the challenge?”

Actually, she’s not one hundred percent sure that Threepio can help her fly the small transport that she’s planning on borrowing, but he can at least translate any advice that Artoo has.

Threepio puffs out his chest. “Well, when you put it like that…”

She slings her bags over her shoulder. One contains a change of clothes—her current outfit will kill her in the desert heat—and enough ration bars for a couple days. The second contains nothing but water bottles.

“That’s the ship,” she points out.

Artoo whistles cheerfully and trundles up the short ramp. Beru follows him and settles into the pilot’s chair, letting out a nervous breath.

“If I have to throw up, you’re in charge,” she instructs Artoo, already feeling a little green at the prospect of having to pay attention when they make the jump to hyperspace.

The little droid chirps his assent. C-3PO looks at her nervously.

“If you have to what?” he asks.

Beru ignores him. “Artoo, set a course for Tatooine.”

“I’m going to get sand in all my joints again!” Threepio protests.

Beru cracks a smile. Funny. She’d never thought that she’d ever miss sand.

“All right, you two. Let’s go home.”

* * *

There’s an old legend repeated by slaves on Tatooine. Anakin Skywalker had thought that it was nonsense. Yet, every so often, Vader surfaces from his meditations with her voice, lonely in the desert sands, echoing in his ears. Maybe that’s why, over twenty years after the last time he set foot on that Force-forsaken planet, he still remembers the old stories.

He closes his eyes against the aching white of his chamber and thinks back to a time he’s tried very, very hard to forget.

In his mind’s eye, Beru Whitesun is a bizarre amalgamation of the young woman standing at Owen Lars’ elbow at Shmi Skywalker’s funeral and the careworn figure, red-tinted through his helmet, from the Death Star. He remembers the soft, lilting sound of her voice as she’d whispered old funeral words in the desert heat.

Slaves’ words.

If she’d raised Luke to believe the same—

His eyes snap open. He makes his decision in the time it takes for him to suit up. When he reaches the bridge, his officers snap to attention. Vader turns to his new captain, who eyes him with slightly less trepidation than his predecessor had.

“Set our course for Tatooine. And keep our cloaking on.”

After all, he wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, Beru.
> 
> in her defense, had literally anyone in the Empire but Vader been chasing them down, this wouldn't have happened.
> 
> welcome to Empire Strikes Back, but different this time :D


	18. third time's the charm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all! I know that AO3 was a bit wonky with emails last week, so if you usually get an alert when this story updates, make sure to check Chapter Seventeen and see if you read it before starting the one :D

“Well, Owen,” Breu tells the desert breeze. “I’m home.”

A short year away has made the familiar landscape alien. The twin suns feel a thousand times more punishing than they did back then. Even with her scarf pulled up around her mouth, she can taste the sand. And on top of it all, the back of her throat is scratchy and dry in a way she barely recognizes.

“Flew here all the way from a system I can’t even remember how to pronounce,” she says with a laugh.

Predictably, the desert doesn’t answer. Beru sits in the shade of what had once been their home and takes a sip of the water she’d brought.

“I’ve been all kinds of places you’ve never heard of.” She shakes her head. “You wouldn’t believe it. They don’t even ration water in that rebellion.”

She sets her water down in a divot in the sand, careful to screw the cap back on as tightly as she can.

“Right. That’s a thing now. I never knew what they were upset about, really. I mean, come on. My parents —Owen, the things that happened to them happened on the Republic’s watch.”

She casts her gaze at the husk of the homestead and sighs again.

“But I guess the Republic never killed an innocent man because he bought the wrong droids.”

She’s sure that Leia has some sweeping, grand argument. Ideas about democracy and rule by the people and rights. But for Beru, it’s as simple as this. Without the Empire, she’d be calling Owen in for lunch, not calling out for his spirit in the desert.

“We’ve been looking out for each other, Luke and I. You’d be proud of him. Once you finished yelling at him for risking his neck every other day, anyway. I’ve tried, but I wasn’t much good at the yelling. You remember?”

She tugs her scarf down to take another sip.

“It’s really hard without you. I’m always wondering what you’d do or think. Probably that I’m crazy. I must be, running around with them. But I just—I don’t know, Owen. He thinks he’s got some sort of destiny. And I believe it.”

She chokes back a dry sob, but the tight feeling in her throat doesn’t go away. Beru’s hands fly to her neck, but she can’t relieve the pressure.

Her last dazed thought before she collapses in the sand is Luke’s name.

* * *

“Something’s wrong.”

Luke sits up straighter than even the strictest of Leia’s manners teachers would have ever demanded. Leia feels the first prickle of unease, but she can’t tell if it’s from Luke or something else.

“Aw, kid, don’t say that,” Han groans. “I haven’t finished my dinner yet.”

But Luke isn’t listening. “Where’s Aunt Beru?” 

Leia frowns. “I haven’t seen her today, but I’ve been in meetings since I got up.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Han says. “Maybe she just needed the day off.” He looks pointedly at Leia. “Speaking of, princess, I could use—”

The look on Leia’s face shuts him up pretty quickly.

“We’ll find Jemma,” Leia says briskly. “It’ll be fine.”

It takes them about forty-five minutes to track Jemma down, only to discover that Beru hadn’t been in their room last night. Luke’s worry spikes, and not even Leia’s hand on the small of his back can calm it.

Finally, he convinces her to check Home One’s records. Sure enough, there’s a small transport that left a full two days before it was meant to. Luke swears more extensively, and in more languages, than Leia has ever heard from him.

“She’s in danger,” Luke says. “We’ve got to go to Tatooine.”

Leia turns to Han. “Captain Solo, are you up for a trip?”

He glares. “Not to Tatooine I’m not! I’m a wanted man there!”

His resolve crumbles quickly when Luke turns his desperate eyes on him. Leia hides a smile that is far fonder than she cares to admit.

“Fine. But if I end up sarlacc chow, that’s on you, kid.”

They rush through Home One as quickly as they can. Leia leaves a message with one of the women they pass to hand off to Mon Mothma. She’ll kill them when they get back, but Leia can’t bring herself to care.

“Buckle up,” Han grouses when they reach the Falcon. Then, “I’m gonna regret this.”

* * *

Beru has enough sense to keep her eyes shut when she finally claws her way back to awareness. Her breath rattles in her bruised throat. Something is very, very wrong, but she doesn't know what. Not, at least, until she hears forced, steady breathing behind her.

Beru’s only coherent thought among the sheer panic is that if Vader doesn’t, Luke is going to kill her.

He must know that she’s awake—Luke always had on warm Life Day mornings—so she pries her eyes open and wills herself not to flinch back at the sight of him. She manages it, but only just.

“Wh—why aren’t I dead?”

The words come out sounding raw, scalded. The rasp of each syllable makes her want to never have to speak again.

Silence in response. Well. Not silence. Just that horrible respirator taking in breaths every bit as rattled as Beru’s. She entertains the notion for a moment that he’s in that suit for a reason other than dramatic effect.

“He’s not stupid,” Beru spits. “He won’t follow me here to get caught.”

It’s a bluff. Luke would walk alone through a sandstorm at night if he thought that he could save her. If Vader wants to use her as bait, her best chance is to beg Luke to stay away and pray that, for once in his life, he listens.

Yeah, right. Luke is far too stubborn for that.

“Stubborn,” Vader says, completely out of the blue. “Like his mother.”

Beru stares at him. She supposes that if he’d betrayed Luke’s father, he might have known his mother as well. 

“What do you care?” Her voice raises a notch despite the fact that it makes her damaged throat ache. “You’re just going to run him through. Like you did Ben Kenobi.”

Abruptly, she realizes that he must have read her mind a few moments ago. Beru tears her eyes away from the mask and focuses on her surroundings instead. They’re in Luke’s old room. She barely recognizes it with the furniture thrown about and sand tracked everywhere.

“You raised him here.”

The last word is said with complete and utter disdain. Beru bristles. It might not have been a palace, but she and Owen had given him a good life. When she doesn’t answer, a tight feeling descends warningly on her throat.

“Yes.”

The pressure eases, but doesn’t fade away. Beru swallows and tries to breathe as steadily as she can. She can’t give him any useful information, so instead she thinks about the memory of that first night, about the reassuring weight of a newborn in her arms. 

They hadn’t had anything yet—food, clothes—so Owen had taken the speeder to Mos Eisley so he could be there when the market started up for the day. She’d stayed home, trying to rock a fussy baby to sleep while trying to forget Ben Kenobi’s last words to her.

“He is in great danger. You will need to be willing to protect him with your life.”

Funny. She’d never told Owen that, and he’d been the one to lay down his life for Luke. And now there’s a very good chance that Luke will die for her sake, not the other way around.

“He will not die.”

Beru’s fear spikes—dying seems like a rather good alternative to Imp hospitality, thanks—but the anger eclipses it entirely. He will not have Luke. She will do anything she can—up to and including what Ben Kenobi told her she might need to do—to keep her child from Vader.

“You killed Kenobi!” Beru snarls. “You killed other Jedi! You killed his father, so what makes him any different?”

The respirator cycles once. Twice. Three times.

“He is different because I did not kill Luke’s father. I _am_ Luke’s father.”

* * *

Oh, he hates this dustball.

Han glares down at Tatooine as they exit hyperspace. It is every bit as ugly as he remembers. Good to know that some things don’t change, even when the whole galaxy turns on its head.

Luke stands next to him in the cockpit. “I never got to see it from space when we left.”

It looks every bit as terrible from above to Han, but for once, he doesn't comment.

“Yeah, well,” he says instead. “Welcome home, kid.”

Han brings the Falcon down in Mos Eisley. Déjà vu makes him shiver. He has a real bad feeling about this.

“You have a plan?”

Luke shrugs as the Falcon comes to rest in the sand. Force, Han hates Tatooine.

“Looks like there aren’t any Imps here. At least, not any more than usual,” Luke remarks. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just paranoid. Maybe she’s fine.”

Han hopes so. For all of their sakes.

Leia pops her head into the cockpit. “Let’s get moving.”

She puts a hand on her blaster and leads Luke out into Tatooine’s punishing suns. Han swears under his breath, but he and Chewie follow anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly not sure if Beru or Vader is more confused right now. he thinks she knows who he is, and she has absolutely no idea.
> 
> next week: even more chaos ensues.


	19. huttese

Beru starts laughing and can’t stop. Every time she thinks she might, the mental image of Darth kriffing Vader standing in Luke’s childhood bedroom looking on while she’s giggling like a schoolgirl makes her start all over again.

It’s possible that, after the year she’s had, she’s just finally snapped.

Finally, something slams into her side. Beru lets out a yelp when she crashes into the wall. The reminder of what Vader can do without ever even touching her shuts her up.

“You’re going to have to come up with a better lie,” Beru tells him after a few moments of silence make it clear that he’s not going to initiate conversation. “I met Anakin Skywalker. You can’t be him.”

Least of all because Skywalker had been a good head shorter than Vader. Even putting that aside, the young man who’d cried at his mother’s grave never could have done the things Beru knows Vader has done.

“Can’t I?” The eyeless mask somehow seems accusing. “You allowed Skywalker’s mother to die.”

Beru bristles. “I loved Shmi like a mo—”

She hits the wall again, harder this time. Beru successfully prevents a whimper from escaping through her clenched teeth, but she still collapses to the ground.

How did he  _ know  _ that? Shmi’s name is on the gravestone about a hundred yards from the homestead, but there was nothing to connect her to Anakin but her last name. And there were plenty of slave families called Skywalker.

“I was there,” he says, words suddenly harsh and guttural and not in Basic. “I know the truth.”

Beru’s blood runs cold. He’d spoken Huttese. And even through the mask, it had been with a familiar accent —a slave’s accent.

Shmi’s.

Beru’s.

_ Luke’s. _

“No.”

Even as she denies it, Beru can’t help but think it makes a horrible amount of sense. Kenobi had been running from a man he’d trained and loved. He’d been left alive, of all the Jedi, because it had been his former apprentice to kill them.

Why would Vader lie when the truth is far, far worse than any lie could ever be?

“You said Owen was a kidnapper.”

It would be far smarter to keep her mouth shut, but Beru can’t control herself as the puzzle pieces fall into place. “He kept your—he kept Luke safe! From you!”

Again, she hits the wall. Beru’s vision swims as the grip on her neck tightens once more. He’s going to kill her anyway. Best to speak her mind while she still can.

“An Empire full of slavers,” she snarls. “And the greatest one was the child of a sl—”

Her breath cuts off.

* * *

Leia pulls her hood more firmly over her head as she follows Luke through the narrow streets. This place is probably crawling with bounty hunters, and unlike Luke’s, her bounty has a face. The Empire had blamed her for the murders on Delaya to justify it. Even now, a year later, the sheer audacity of it makes her blood boil.

It’s hard to believe that this is the planet that produced Luke Skywalker. His sunny smile and the quiet wonder about him at the smallest things in the galaxy seem out of place.

“We’ll have to rent a speeder.”

Luke shoots one of those trademark smiles over his shoulder, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s worried. Sometimes, Luke knows things before they happen. But what if, this time, he’s sensing pain in real time?

It doesn’t take long to get settled with a speeder. Luke barks down the salesman’s price with a ferocity that seems to catch even Han off-guard. Leia pulls her scarf more firmly over her mouth for protection as they fly off towards the homestead.

They’re within sight of the ruins when a blaster bolt flies directly past Luke’s ear. Leia flings herself down in her seat, grabbing her blaster with one hand while shoving Chewie down with her other. In the front of the speeder, Luke scrambles to do the same thing while struggling to keep on course.

They didn’t beat the Imps here, after all.

The speeder splutters and their speed drops precipitously. Leia manages to drag herself far enough upright to see a wave of stormtroopers cresting a sand dune. Too many to take on and survive.

“Step on it!” she yells.

“They hit something!” Luke shouts back, just as the engine dies.

Leia scrambles to her feet as the speeder lurches to a halt. There isn’t any cover. The speeder hovers a foot and a half off the ground, so there’s no hope of hiding behind it. And it’s not like the desert offers much in the way of protection. So she runs, bolting after Luke as quickly as she can, Han and Chewie hard on her heels.

“Are you crazy?” Han howls. “It’s just desert out there!”

“I know my way!” Luke shouts.

He knows how to move on the sand too, bouncing lightly from step to step like he’s dancing. None of Leia’s rather extensive training has covered this.

Then, the heat from the suns above drains away, and cold settles into Leia’s bones.

“Run!” Leia screams, pointlessly.

She manages to catch Han’s eye, and the plan passes silently between them. Leia doesn’t doubt that Chewie will go along with it, too.

“Split up!”

Leia peels off to her left, Chewie quick behind her. Han heads right. Luke shouts a protest, but it’s too late to do anything about it.

A blaster bolt strikes near Leia’s foot, and she throws herself sideways. Her ankle twists, so she falls more than runs down a slope of sand. All the air rushes out of her lungs when she hits the ground. Leia rolls, hissing in pain when her exposed neck scrapes against the scorching sand. By the time she gets her feet underneath her with Chewie’s help, they’re almost on top of them. 

Rather than turn tail and run again, Leia lifts her blaster and aims.

She takes down four troopers before one finally strikes her with a stun bolt.

* * *

She’s actually crazy, but judging by the four troopers tearing after Luke, the plan worked.

Han lets out a sigh of relief when he spots Chewie stumbling over a crest of sand. It looks like he’s been shot in the leg, but it’s okay. He’s had worse. Han knows that as long as he’s breathing, he’ll be all right.

Then another trooper crests the ridge, carrying Leia in his arms. Han sees red. Without thinking, he slams his elbow back. Had the trooper holding him back not been wearing armor, he probably would have doubled over. Instead, all Han gets for his trouble is a starburst of pain in his elbow. Ignoring it, Han drives his foot down on the trooper’s foot. He manages to get about two steps away before a white armored arm wraps around his neck.

“LEIA!” Han yells.

He thrashes, but the grip on his neck stays firmly in place.

“If she’s dead, you’re dead,” he shouts. “You hear me?”

The trooper wrestles his arms behind his back, despite Han’s thrashing.

By the time Chewie and the trooper carrying Leia reach him, Han is fairly certain that his arms are bruised to hell and back. Chewie roars and Han’s breathing evens out. A stun bolt. His princess is more than tough enough for that.

“Where’s the boy?” Han’s trooper asks.

“Four troopers on ground pursuit, two going to get a speeder, sir.”

Han can’t help but smile at that. The kid is smart, and he spent his whole life on this rock. If anybody can disappear into the desert, it’s Luke.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Han says.

The trooper knees him in the back. Han bites down on a grunt. He tries to keep his eye on Leia as the troopers begin dragging them back to the homestead. She’s small enough on her feet, but she looks tiny in the trooper’s arms. 

Han frowns as they reach the homestead. Luke had never really given much detail about what had happened to his uncle. Mrs. Lars’ overprotectiveness suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense. He tries to ignore the scorch marks on the wall as the troopers shove them inside.

The troopers aren’t exactly careful with them. Han whips his head around to glare at his trooper when he gives him a particularly rough shove, and the trooper holding Leia bounces her head off of the doorframe.

“Watch it!” Han snarls.

They march out into the sunlight again. Han squints uncomfortably. He hates his planet. People shouldn’t have to live underground.

“My lord, the rebels.”

Han’s bad feeling triples just in time for the sound of horribly regular breathing to echo off of the courtyard. And he thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

“Leave them.”

Han’s flight instincts kick into high gear. But one look at Leia’s slack face makes him school his expression into a cocky smile.

“Hey, Mrs. Lars,” he says when they’re shoved inside. “We’re really in it this time, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: the original concept of this chapter had Han and Beru alone with Vader, with Vader and Beru's conversation happening in Huttese. poor Han only recognized a few words--father among them. needless to say he was very confused.


	20. frying pan, fire

Things have gotten exponentially worse by the time that Beru claws her way to consciousness for a second time. She manages to sit up, though the movement makes her head spin. She’s going to have to do her best not to get choked out again.

The only good thing about the scene in front of her is that Luke isn’t in it. Chewie stands with three stormtroopers flanking him. He eyes Vader like he’s thinking of how many hits he can get in before being killed. Han stands low over Leia, arms outstretched like he has a chance in any of his nine Corellian hells of stopping Vader from getting to her. 

Beru’s attempt at righting herself must have gotten Vader’s attention, because he turns the skeletal mask away from Han and Leia and back to her. It’s a comfort that he’s not menacing her friends anymore, but the eyeless mask unnerves her.

“He got away,” Han calls.

It’s good to know that they’re not just keeping Luke somewhere else, but bad to know that he’s on-world. He knows this desert better than anyone else, but the last time he’d wandered off on his own, he’d been jumped by a handful of Tuskens. It doesn’t exactly fill her with confidence about his chances.

“Tell me about him.”

Beru just stares.

Vader, however, is not a patient man. He makes a fist, and Beru flinches, but she’s not the one to choke. Han lets out a gasp as his feet leave the ground. Beu scrambles to her feet, ignoring the way her head spins.

“Let him go!”

She gets the feeling that if Vader had eyebrows—and who knows, he just might if he’s really Anakin Skywalker under that suit—he’d be raising them.

“Give me answers, and I will consider it.”

Beru’s eyes flick to Leia—unconscious on the floor—to Chewie—three blasters aimed at his head—to Han—feet dangling several inches off of the ground.

What could he possibly want to know about Luke? Vader’s earlier admission (earlier lie, a part of her insists, despite the terrible logic of it all) rings in her ears. What would a father who had never met his son want to know about him? And is that even what Vader wants to know?

Chewie lets out a panicked roar, jolting Beru out of her reverie. She blurts out the very first thing that comes to mind.

“He was late to walk.”

Behind Vader, Han drags in a gasp of air, but his feet don’t return to the ground. Clearly, this wasn’t the information he was looking for, but now it’s all Beru can think about that isn’t rebel intelligence.

“He was little when he came to us.” She’s fairly certain that if Han were currently able to breathe, he’d comment something about him still being a shortstack. “Born prematurely, I think.”

And with those words, for the first time, all of the pieces fall into place. Beru raises a trembling hand to her throat, to the ring of somehow finger-shaped bruises that must encircle it.

Sabé’s voice rings dully in her ears:  _ “Not a scratch on her, but bruising around the throat.” _

She pictures Padmé—the queen, who’d sat in Beru’s tiny kitchen and made smalltalk even though there was nothing they could possibly have in common; the senator, who’d left so much of an imprint on her people that just evoking her name had given Leia aid from Naboo; the mother, who’d given Beru the most precious gift in the galaxy. She tries to picture Owen—gruff, gentle Owen, soft under his prickly shell—ever raising a hand to her, but she can’t.

She wonders what, exactly, oxygen loss in the final months of pregnancy could do.

Her voice shakes. “You—”

But the words die in her bruised throat. Leather creaks as Vader closes his fist and Han  _ gags. _

Beru blinks, and suddenly Leia is on her feet, braid slightly unraveled but otherwise unharmed. Her eyes are locked on Vader’s—Beru knows with a certainty that disturbs her that she’s really looking at him, not the helmet.

Leia raises her hand, and Beru feels something like electricity crackle across her skin. Han sucks in one gasp. Then another, and another, like he can barely get air into his lungs, but he’s breathing.

The door swings open, and a herd of stormtroopers surges through at the precise moment that both Han and Leia hit the ground unconscious.

“Bring them on board,” Vader says.

Beru doesn’t even resist as two troopers grab her by the arms and drag her out of her once-home.

* * *

Alcohol has never affected Leia much. Her height usually makes people assume that they can beat her in a drinking contest, and Leia has never felt the need to disabuse anyone of that notion until after she’d drunk them under the table.

But the headache she wakes to makes her understand why people sometimes swear off Corellian whiskey the morning after.

“Easy.”

She opens her eyes to a very blurry Han Solo staring down at her in concern.

“What?”

Someone is holding her hand. Leia squints until Beru comes into view, worry etched into every line of her careworn face. Chewie lets out a relieved huff at the sight of her open eyes.

“Did somebody stun me again?”

She struggles to sit upright. Han grips her shoulder when she wobbles.

“No, hon,” Beru says softly.

Then what happened? The memory drifts slowly back. Leia remembers opening her eyes, remembers shock and anger in Beru’s usually gentle voice, remembers feeling pain that, somehow, she knows isn’t hers.

She remembers ripping layer after layer of cold aside, trying to fix something, save someone—and then it all floods back into place.

“But I can’t—I’ve never done anything like that.”

Beru grimaces. “When Luke was little, odd stuff used to happen. He’d get his hands on a toy we’d put on a high shelf so he’d go to bed, or start crying when a sandstorm was coming, or—” Her voice falters. “Maybe it’s like that? An instinct?”

Leia shuts down that line of thought as quickly as she can. She’s just Leia—nothing special about her but a good aim and a penchant for witty one-liners. She’ll deal with this—whatever  _ this  _ is—when they’re not about to die.

So maybe she’ll never deal with it. 

“They moved us on to the shuttle after you collapsed,” Beru explains.

That’s not good. Being on an imperial shuttle is an unfortunate step away from being on an imperial star destroyer, which is infinitely worse. It explains why they’re still together, though. Leia has had the schems for imperial ships memorized since she was thirteen. There’s only one cell on a shuttle of this size.

“No sign of Luke?”

Beru nods tersely. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll be headed out into the wastes. There might still be supplies at Kenobi’s hut.”

Han snorts. “Too bad the kid doesn’t know what’s good for him.”

Leia shoots him a glare. Luckily, the headache is receding. Hopefully, it’ll die down enough for her to figure out how to get out of here.

“How many troopers?”

Han counts on his fingers, eyes roving the ceiling as he tries to remember. Leia has been on enough missions with him to know that the counting isn’t for show.

“Five on the shuttle, at least ten to fifteen off of it. Plus the ones looking for Luke.”

Leia doesn’t like those odds. Chewie echoes her thinking with a roar.

“The locking mechanism for the cell is on that console,” she says, pointing at it. “Anybody catch the code?”

Chewie answers, and Han translates. “Started with a 2-6, but they zapped him before he could get a look at the rest.”

Great. Not that the code would have done them much good from all the way over here, anyway.

“Well, I guess—”

The sound of blasterfire cuts her off. 

Beru’s eyes go wide. “Luke?”

Leia shakes her head. It doesn’t sound like an Alliance-issue blaster.

“Maybe he rounded up some friends,” Han suggests.

There’s an old Alderaanian saying about frying pans and fire that Leia can’t help but roll over in her head. So when she spots a suit of armor that almost looks Mandalorian round the corner, Leia doesn’t allow herself to feel relief.

* * *

Vader can feel the boy the moment he turns in the desert and begins the long trek back to the burned-out homestead. He allows Luke to enter the building and waits until he hears a lightsaber ignite before he turns.

“Hello, Luke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been one of my favorite chapters so far! 
> 
> I really think that Beru feels a certain level of kinship with Padme, even though she barely knew her, so I thought it would be appropriate for her to come to a (sort of wrong, sort of right) conclusion about how she died.
> 
> as an explanation for Leia--in the movies, she's not present when Han is being hurt, so she doesn't react quite so viscerally. here, though, she's angry and scared enough to push Vader back just enough to save his life.


	21. fett

“Ah, fuck,” says Han Solo eloquently as he tries unsuccessfully to hide behind Leia.

Beru stares as a figure in a green suit of armor steps over a stormtrooper’s limp arm and comes to a halt at the console that Leia had pointed at earlier.

“Oh, great,” Leia says, twisting to level a glare at Han.

Beru can’t blame her. When the people they meet know Leia’s name, it usually means that they have a new ally. When they know Han’s, it's usually a new enemy.

“Solo,” says the man in green before returning to his work at the console.

The cell door clicks open, but the moment it does, the man aims a blaster at Beru’s head.

“One wrong move, and she dies. Then the Wookiee, then the girl.”

Leia bristles slightly at being called a girl, but wisely keeps her mouth shut.

Beru raises her hands, even though she’s reasonably sure that it won’t help.

“How’d you know I was here?”

The man scoffs. It’s a strange noise coming through the helmet. Beru wonders why it is that no one that they meet wants to show their face.

“You’re flying the same ship.”

He does, Beru thinks, have a point. Subtlety is hardly Han’s strong suit.

“Imps were kind enough to gift wrap you for me. Now step on out.”

Leia glares and shields as much of Han from view as her height allows.

“It’s rather bold to take a prisoner out of Imperial custody, don't you think?” She crosses her arms and fixes him with a stare that is, frankly, rather alarming. “They’ve killed people for less.”

The man shrugs. “If they get mad, I can always tell them that you came out of the D’Qar system.”

Leia’s face whitens. Home One isn’t scheduled to move for at least two days. If Vader believed him, a fleet large enough to destroy most of the rebellion’s leadership could quickly overwhelm them. But to Beru’s shock, Leia—the woman who withstood the threat of her home planet’s destruction—reaches back and grabs Han by the hand while she shakes her head. Beru thinks she understands. Leia can’t stand to lose even one more person. Beru expects Han to take the offer of protection. But to her surprise, he gives Leia’s hand a quick squeeze before dropping it.

“Look, I can pay Jabba back. Triple!”

Beru’s blood runs cold. Jabba? She’d never asked Han what kind of trouble he’d been in on Tatooine, but she’d always hoped that it didn’t involve the Huttts. Particularly not that one.

“Yeah, right,” the bounty hunter—because that’s what he’s got to be—says.

Han pushes forward, but the combined strength of Leia and Beru stops him.

“If you want to hand someone over to Jabba,” Beru snarls, “you’ll have to go through me.”

The man raises his blaster. “Not a problem.”

Ah. Maybe not one of her finer ideas. Beru throws herself sideways, trusting her companions to do the same. The blaster bolt slams into the durasteel behind where her head had been. 

“All right, all right!” Han shouts.

Beru scrambles to her feet. “Are you crazy?”

Chewie roars in agreement.

But he isn’t crazy—he just isn’t from Tatooine. And someone who isn’t from the desert could never understand what he’s resigning himself to. 

She doesn’t know exactly what to expect from Imperial custody, though she can hazard an unhappy guess. But at least at the end of it, Beru knows, they’ll be dead.

They’d get no such mercy from a Hutt.

“Han—” Leia starts.

He shakes his head. “I’ve gotta go.”

With his hands raised, Han steps cautiously through their little group towards the open cell door.

“Will you at least leave it open? Give them a fighting chance?”

The moment the words leave his mouth, the cell door clangs shut. Beru rolls her eyes. No point in asking a bounty hunter to show a little mercy.

“It’ll be all right,” Han says, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Chewie surges forward to rattle the bars, but they don’t so much as bend under his weight. Beru can’t say she’s surprised. The Empire doesn’t like non-humans much, so they spend quite a bit of time locking them up. 

Leia’s eyes are filled with tears, but she doesn’t let them fall. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Han offers her a mini salute before the bounty hunter drags him out of sight. 

* * *

There is silence—a long stretch of it that a twenty-year-old Anakin Skywalker doubtlessly would have felt the need to fill. Clearly, his son has slightly more patience.

“Don’t call me that,” the boy spits.

Emphasis on  _ slightly _ , then.

“It is your name,” Vader points out.

At last, he turns to face his son. Vader has had almost a year to prepare himself for this moment, but he’s still not ready. Luke is still desert blond, although the last several months running through hyperspace with the Rebel Alliance has made it slightly darker. It’s no easier to tell the color of his eyes in person than it had been in the holo, but he’d guess blue.

“Lay down your weapon.”

Unsurprisingly, all the order causes the boy to do is tighten his grip. Vader isn’t sure why he’s surprised. Luke spent nearly twenty years under Kenobi’s thumb. Surely he heard the old lecture a thousand times or more—your weapon is your life.

“Where are they?” Luke demands.

His voice shakes and a bit of his fear for his friends leakes into his Force signature, but his face betrays none of his fear.

“Unharmed, for now.”

The implicit threat makes the boy flinch, but only barely. Luke raises the blide higher.

It’s painfully obvious that he doesn't have much, if any, saber training. An odd omission on Kenobi’s part. By Luke’s age, most Padawans would have been nearing knighthood. And Vader has never seen nor fought a knight with such a sloppy grip.

It makes him think of his own padawan and her insistence on a reverse grip. By now, though, Vader is more than capable of shoving those types out of his head.

He probably should have seen it coming, but he barely brings his own lightsaber up to block the boy’s swing. The last few Jedi he’s faced in battle have spent the first few minutes running. This is refreshing.

It’s a strong blow—nineteen years in the desert don’t create a weak man—but it’s unfocused. It would be too easy to disarm him, but Vader is curious. He parries instead.

The next few blows make one thing perfectly clear. Vader knows Kenobi’s fighting style better than almost anything. And if the way Luke had reacted to his mentor’s death is any indication, the boy would have emulated him. No. Kenobi did not train his son. It’s one more mystery to unravel.

“You’re untrained,” Vader says.

“I’m trained enough,” Luke snarls.

Enough of this. Luke’s next swing goes wide and Vader takes the opportunity to knock the saber out of his hands. It skitters away, rolling until it hits the base of what Vader assumes was once Luke’s bed.

He summons the lightsaber into his hand with an easy flick of his wrist. It feels smaller in his grip than it had at the end of the Clone Wars.

Luke reaches for his blaster, but he never gets to raise it. Vader waves his hand and yanks it away. The boy backs toward the door, but Vader closes it with another quick movement. Luke stares at him, eyes wide as he slowly realizes just how stuck he is. 

To Vader’s surprise, the boy finds his voice. “Recognize it?”

Vader clenches his fist. The metal groans and starts to give way.

“No!” Luke yelps, but he’s too late.

The lightsaber shatters, collapses into multiple tiny pieces. The air stirs—the boy is powerful in the Force, but not quite powerful enough.

His face twists. “That was my father’s.”

So he knows that much. Vader wonders what lies, exactly, Kenobi fed him. But this isn’t the moment for Luke to find out the truth.

“You will stand down,” Vader orders.

The boy grits his teeth. He’s still crouched like he’s ready to fight or bolt. His eyes unerringly track Vader’s, even through the mask.

The only person that manages to do that on the regular is the princess.

“Will you let them go?”

He sounds young.

Vader stays silent. Luke’s ragged breathing outpaces Vader’s, forever long and steady, for a full ten cycles.

Some of the fire leaks out of Luke’s eyes. 

“If I come,” Luke asks, “will you swear to not harm them?”

It’s a naive question. All four of his companions are known members of the Rebel Alliance. No matter. The boy doesn’t know enough of the Force to sense a lie—not from Vader, anyway.

“They will not be harmed.”

To Luke’s credit, he doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he still lowers his hands.

“What do you want with me?”

Vader doesn’t answer him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, Han. look, I know there are Star Wars curses, but sometimes, you just need to let a real one fly.
> 
> and Luke D: poor thing is not nearly as prepared as in canon D:
> 
> (I gave Vader his son for Father’s Day??)


	22. an unjust galaxy

After the Death Star, Leia supposes, an Imperial star destroyer just isn’t all that impressive. She raises an eyebrow as she’s marched out of the shuttle, but Leia doesn't bother to look around. Besides, all of the star destroyers are modelled after the old Republic cruisers—or, in some of the older ones, really  _ were  _ Republic cruisers—so her father had been sure to drill the details into her head as a girl.

“Where is he?”

Behind her, a scuffle breaks out. Leia cranes her neck despite the rough plastoid-clad hands on her shoulders. To Beru’s credit, she manages to down the trooper immediately behind her. One good kick to the knee, followed by a shove, knocks him over. Beru goes for the next trooper. but he backhands her sharply across the face. She staggers back a few steps, but stays upright. Chewie roars in protests.

Leia whirls around. “Chewie. Let’s live to fight another day.”

One of the troopers snorts behind the helmet. Beru wheels around to face him, despite the fact that her eyes are somewhat unfocused. Leia yanks free of the grip on her shoulders to grab Beru’s hands in hers.

“This isn’t worth the fight. Save your strength.”

Beru’s eyes are dull when they meet hers, but understanding passes between them.

“Come on,” she says quietly.

Leia fixes the troopers with her most imperious look before they get moving. If she’s thinking about Beru and Chewie, about protecting them, she isn’t thinking about Han or the almost-Mandalorian or Jabba the Hutt. She’s not trying to figure out if it’s better that his debts had caught up to him.

(And she’s not thinking about the last time she was surrounded by stormtroopers—not thinking about Vader’s breathing in her ears or Tarkin’s cruel fingers digging into her chin or the light of Alderaan burning into her eyes.)

They make it to the detention level faster than Leia had expected. She keeps her eyes locked on Beru and Chewie until the troopers shove her into a cell and close the door behind her.

The irony of the fact that the cell is identical to her quarters on the Death Star is not lost on Leia. Except this time, there’s no Luke to march through the door. No Han making a mess down the hall. There’s no rescue coming. Not this time. Soo Leia sits cross-legged on the bench, leans back against the cold wall, and closes her eyes.

It’s up to her to come up with a solution.

* * *

Luke says nothing as Vader steers him to the bridge. Wisely, his officers have made themselves scarce—Vader had promised a prolonged death to anyone that lingered. He doesn’t need his master to discover Luke before the boy is ready.

Luke stares out of the viewport at the planet below. His shields aren’t half bad, despite the fact that Vader is beginning to suspect that Kenobi taught him next to nothing, but a hint of nostalgia seeps out anyway. Vader’s anger surges—how  _ dare  _ they raise a child of his on that rock—but he fights it back when Luke turns to him with alarm sketched on his face.

His eyes find Vader’s beneath the mask.

“What do you want?”

Luke turns on him sharply, eyes narrowing, anger rising up in a flash. Vader soaks it in. The boy ordinarily glows in the Force, but now he’s like an explosion. If Vader can stoke that rage, if he can direct it, there’s no limit to what they can accomplish.

Vader turns away toward the stars.

“What did Obi-Wan tell you about your father?”

The boy sets his jaw.

“He was a Jedi,” Luke says at last, once he realizes that Vader isn’t going to let him get away with silence.

“And?”

Luke’s eyes flash. “You betrayed him. And then you murdered him.”

Every single light on the bridge splutters and dies, leaving them bathed in nothing but starlight. Luke scrambles back a few steps until he hits the navigation console. He barely catches himself before he tips over.

Vader watches as Luke realizes that there’s nowhere to run. To the boy’s credit, the realization makes him straighten his spine and narrow his eyes. He reaches to his belt, but there aren’t any weapons there any longer. The empty hand drops to his side, fist clenched.

“Kenobi lied.”

Vader can’t help but think of the thousand peace talks he’d tailed his old master to during the wars. He’d had a way of twisting words around until his opponent had agreed to something they didn’t even fully understand. Vader hadn’t appreciated those talents back then, and he appreciates them even less now.

Luke stares him down, defiant. “Ben wouldn’t lie.” 

_ Ben.  _ Why bother choosing a fake first name if he didn’t bother to change his surname? For that matter, why let Luke keep Skywalker while in hiding? Typical arrogant Kenobi.

“He attacked your father.”

Luke shakes his head, but he must be able to sense the truth in the Force because there’s not nearly as much conviction dripping off of his Force signature.

“He wounded your father grievously,” Vader continues, his eyes never leaving his son’s.

Luke tries to stumble back again, but he’s pressed against the console.

“No,” he chokes out.

Vader smiles, feels the pinch of scar tissue stretching in a way it’s unused to. Kenobi isn’t the only one that can twist the truth.

“And then,” Vader finishes, “he left your father for dead.”

Luke’s face is ashen. And still, despite the doubt clouding his mind, he shakes his head. What had Kenobi done to earn this loyalty?”

“Search your feelings. You know this to be the truth.”

The boy narrows his eyes. He hears the truth, but he doesn’t accept it. And if he won’t accept the truth about Kenobi, Vader reasons, he certainly won’t accept the truth about his parentage. At least, not yet.

“Where are my friends?”

Had Vader had his way, they would all be dead. But his troopers informed him that the smuggler had escaped, the princess has piqued his interest with her stunt back in the burnt-out homestead, and the Wookiee is an ex-freedom fighter from the Empire’s invasion of Kashyyyk and one of the last sentients known to have contact with Yoda. As for Beru Whitesun, her death will need to be calculated to turn his son.

Luke has amassed an unusual crew.

“You are powerful,” he says carefully, instead of answering.

This, as much as he hates it, is a negotiation. And negotiations were never his strong suit.

The boy huffs in response, glancing down at the empty holsters as if to say ‘not powerful enough.’

“You would be more powerful if you were trained.”

Luke has been moving for the entire conversation, shifting his weight from foot to foot, glancing at the exit, reaching for the weapons he no longer has at his side. At those words, he stills, eyes fixed on the doorway.

“In the dark side of the Force?” Luke’s nose scrunches. “Never.”

Vader thinks of Beru Whitesun’s slave prayer at Shmi Skywalker’s funeral. Of the thousands of tiny injustices that even the child of two moisture farmers would have witnessed on that planet. Of how if this truly is Shmi Skywalker’s grandson, he must be itching to correct them.

He moves closer, and Luke flinches back, but Vader ignores him as he strides to the viewport. Tatooine hangs below them, looking just as ugly and pathetic as it does planetside. Vader fights the urge to scowl—it’ll just make his face hurt. He wishes that the princess had come from Tatooine. It would have been a pleasure to watch this planet explode, never to bother him again.

“It’s an unjust galaxy.”

Luke chances a glance at him, but he looks away just as quickly.

“With the right power, Luke, you can right those wrongs.”

Luke glares. “The wrongs the Empire created.”

“Your grandmother,” Vader says, words sticking in his throat, “was a slave while the Republic ruled. Was that justice?”

Luke doesn’t say a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now that Vader actually has some time to think, he's making a much more enticing offer!
> 
> (of course, this /is/ Luke we're talking about so...good luck with that, bud)


	23. dyad

Leia folds her legs under herself and closes her eyes. She’s far too keyed up to even consider trying to sleep, so instead, she tries to quiet her mind like Breha had taught her. She’s never really been able to clear her head despite her mother’s urging. Leia desperately wishes that Breha were here—it’s been a year, but the pain of losing her still rips a hole in Leia’s chest.

Still. Maybe something will come of her mother’s lessons.

Leia lets out a longer breath than the one she takes in. Her heart rate slows down, but the knot in the pit of her stomach doesn't loosen.

She  _ feels  _ so much more than she usually does. Like her nerves are electrified, like she can see with her eyes closed. Leia thinks about what Aunt Beru said—about Luke’s adolescent use of the Force. 

This is ridiculous.

But still. She keeps her eyes closed and reaches out. For a moment, all she can feel is overwhelming cold, like somebody somehow flooded her veins with chilled blood. Leia grits her teeth and pushes past it, seeking warmth.

She finds it and doesn’t let go. When Leia reopens her eyes, she’s not in her cell anymore. Well—that’s not right, exactly. She can still feel the cold durasteel under her, but she’s not looking at the cell door anymore. Instead, she’s staring at what Leia assumes is a moff’s quarters. There’s a desk looking out into the deep vacuum of space, and the floor is covered in a plush carpet.

But rather than a stack of datapads, there’s a boy sitting cross legged on top of the desk.

“Luke!” 

She whispers it, even though she probably doesn’t have to. Luke jolts anyway, nearly tipping off the desk as he whips around.

“Leia! Where—what?”

Leia shrugs helplessly. “I know about as much as you do.”

None of this makes any sense. But then again, nothing has made sense to Leia in the last year. She’s just learned to accept insanity.

So she plows on. “Where are you?”

Luke frowns. “I thought they’d stick me in the detention level, but I think this is an officer’s room. The door is locked, though.”

Leia’s lips purse as her brain starts whirring. It’s possible, she supposes, that the detention level is full. But surely there is a better place to put a prisoner than here. So this gilded cage is deliberate. Leia doesn’t like what that implies.

“Did he hurt you?” Luke demands.

Leia considers telling him about Chewie’s blaster wound or the bruises on Beru’s throat. Or about Han.

But she can’t afford to worry him, to distract him. So instead, she shakes her head.

“We’re fine. You?”

Something flickers in Luke’s eyes, but he shakes his head as well. Leia resolves to pull it out of him later, but they need to survive for that to happen.

“Good. It’ll make getting out of here easier.”

Their odds are still impossibly long, but a voice in Leia’s head that sounds suspiciously like Han Solo tells her to screw the odds. If they don’t get out of here, the Alliance will assume that Han just ran off. No one will ever know that he was taken, much less where to look.

They need to get out of here.

“Can you—I don’t know—use the Force to get the door open?”

Luke frowns. “I tried already. But I couldn’t get the lock to move.”

Slowly, it dawns on him.

“Wait. You’re using the Force right now. You get it open on your end and get out.”

Leia shakes her head. “No I’m not! You’re the one connecting with me.”

“I don’t know that much about the Force, but I don’t think this would work with Aunt Beru.”

Nerves rise up in Leia’s throat. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. It must show in her eyes, because Luke’s soften.

“You can do it. Close your eyes.”

Leia hesitates, afraid of breaking the connection, but at Luke’s urging, she does.

“Good. Breathe in, hold it, and release.”

Leia follows his instructions. They sound like her mother’s. That thought calms her more than any breathing exercise ever could.

“What do you feel?”

Leia’s mouth twists. She doesn't love talking about that. “Hungry, I guess. Tired.”

Luke lets out a huff that would probably be laughter in any other situation. “No. I mean around you.”

Leia reaches out. There’s a humming around her that she’s never felt before, and when she reaches out, it welcomes her in, and shows her a big, warm presence in front of her—Chewie. It feels like one of his hugs. And to her right, something that feels like a bubbling stream. Beru. If she reaches further, there’s the overwhelming cold that Leia recognizes all too well.

Then, there’s light—more than light than Leia is prepared for.

“I can feel you,” Leia says, reopening her eyes.

Luke smiles. “I can usually feel you, too. But right now—” His brow furrows. “All I can feel is cold.”

He shakes his head as if to clear it. There’s worry in his face, but before Leia can call him on it, he smooths it over.

“What about the door?”

Leia closes her eyes again, calmer this time with the reminder of Luke’s presence.

“It’s thick.”

“And the lock?” Luke prompts.

It’s like she’s put on x-ray goggles, even though Leia can’t actually see anything. She can feel the lock, can feel that it won’t move without the prompting of the keypad.

“I can’t open it.”

“Leia—”

“I can’t!” 

This isn’t what she’s used to, isn’t what she knows she can do. This power isn't meant to be hers.

A noise startles them both, though Leia can somehow tell that it’s coming from Luke’s end of the vision.

Luke meets her eyes. “Good luck.”

And suddenly she’s staring at the door of her cell again, any trace of Luke and his desk gone. Leia takes a deep breath and shoves all her worries and fears into a tiny box in the back of her mind. It’s what she did the first time she’d come face to face with Vader on Tantive IV, what she did on the bridge of the Death Star as Alderaan exploded. It worked then, and it has to work now.

Leia doesn’t have time for a sophisticated plan. So instead, she throws back her head and screams.

* * *

Life debts are a serious thing to a Wookiee. Chewbacca knows perfectly well that Han Solo only freed him to save his own skin, but it had been the man’s later actions—and his amusing attempts at learning Shyriiwook , which very few others so much as tried—to win his loyalty.

His loyalty isn’t particularly helpful to Han now. Chewie hadn’t liked the idea of working for one of the Hutts much, but they’d been strapped for cash from yet another business venture gone horribly wrong. They hadn’t had much of a choice.

Now, he desperately wishes that they’d created another choice when they’d had the chance.

No, there isn’t much he can do for Han now. But Chewie can do what he can to protect the little family had built this last year.

(Not that Han would ever describe it as such—Chewie has never actually managed to discover what happened with him and Q’ira, but he knows enough to assume that Han’s aversion to the concept started there.)

Still. The motherly woman with the durasteel heart and the pups that remind him far too much of the Jedi generals he served with so long ago for their own good are under his protection. So when his door slides up and open, Chewis is ready for a fight. He lowers his fists with a confused noise in the back of his throat.

“Hey, Chewie,” Leia says with a tight grin.

It doesn't take a genius to work out what happened. Across the hall from Chewie’s cell, there’s an unconscious stormtrooper trapped underneath the door to Leia’s cell. She must have somehow dropped the door on him—Chewie thinks of High General Yoda all those years ago—and then crawled out.

She hands the trooper’s blaster over to Chewie. He hates Imperial blasters. They’re cheaply made and difficult to aim, but it’ll do until he can get something better. He takes aim at the lock on Beru’s door and fires. As Leia works with the now-exposed wires, Chewie kicks at the unconscious trooper until he’s inside the cell and the door is closed.

“Got it!”

Leia takes a step back as the door slides open to reveal Beru.

“Ready to get out of here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leia would have made a pretty excellent Sith if not for, you know, her hatred of tyranny
> 
> anyway I love the /concept/ of a Force dyad, if not the execution in the ST. so here we are!
> 
> thanks for all the support, y'all, it means the world :D


	24. still here, but gone

The last time Beru felt like this had been over thirty years ago.

Death is a strange kind of mercy—her people know that well. So even though she’d known that Owen had suffered, his death had been a blessing because it had been brief.

But this—

Beru knows that Luke isn’t dead. Not because she would have felt a disturbance in the universe if he’d been killed, but because she’s still breathing. Unlike Leia—or, she suspects, Chewie—Beru is no one. A moisture farmer from a backwater dump that spent her year with the rebels mostly in a kitchen. There is no point to keeping her alive unless Luke is alive.

But she also knows that he’s on board. When they hit lightspeed, Beru’s heart plunges into her stomach, and not just because she’s about to lose her ration bars. Vader wouldn't leave without Luke. She’s sure of it.

So Luke is alive. And on board. Still here, but gone. He could be in the cell next door, and Beru would be none the wiser.

Still here but gone. There’s a part of her that can’t stop reliving the last night she felt like that.

She’d been studying for an exam in the dying light of Tatooine’s twin suns in between running from vaparator to vaparator. Her Aunt Tam — her mother’s senior by sixteen years—had been sitting on the stoop, stretching her bad leg out. Her uncle, Tod, had been out running errands. Beru still remembers the way guilt had hung heavy in her gut. Tam and Tod hadn’t been expecting her. With their own children long grown, they’d had a little bit of extra space for her, but not the extra supplies.

When he’d returned, he’d turned to Tam and spoke to her in a hushed voice. Beru had continued to work on the vaparator with her heart growing heavy as her aunt’s face had crumpled.

She’d known what had happened to her parents before Tod approached her, but it hadn’t stopped her from collapsing into his chest with a sob.

Still here, but gone. She knows that story all too well.

Beru groans and draws her legs up to her chest. There’s no comfortable way to sit in her cell. As soon as she does, the door slides open. Beru tenses, but it’s not a stormtrooper on the other side.

She grins as she hurries out of the cell, as if the door is going to close on her.

“Doing okay there, Chewie?”

Her eyes rove over the untreated blaster wound on his shoulder. He nods, so Beru smiles and turns back to Leia.

“How’d you do it?”

Leia frowns. “Not sure. We’ll talk about it later.”

Honestly, Beru isn’t sure how much ‘later’ any of them are going to have, but there isn’t time to ask.

“Where’s Luke?” she demands.

“Not here. Come on.”

Beru and Chewie learned on the Death Star that following Leia on these types of situations is the best idea. The Wookiee shrugs when Beru glances his way and then takes off after Leia, who’s already sprinting down the hallway, despite the fact that Chewie is the only one out of the three of them that has a weapon.

They’d only survived the Death Star because of Ben Kenobi, and the old man is long gone. Who would have thought that one day she’d be missing ghim of all people?

Leia moves faster than her short legs have any right to carry her. A year spent with the rebels has at least taught Beru how to run, but she still isn’t sure how long she can keep up the breakneck pace. It’s like Leia can tell what’s coming before it arrives. She reminds Beru irresistibly of Luke the few times she’d been unlucky enough to sit beside him while he piloted his speeder. Tatooine isn’t exactly known for its strict traffic laws, but Luke drives recklessly even by those standards, darting down side streets and making hairpin turns with no regard to the laws of the street or gravity. But somehow, he’d never taken any of the spills that Beru had yelped about while she white-knuckled her way through the journey.

Leia doesn't pause to think about the turns she’s taking for even a moment. She just plunges headlong into the next step. Luckily, Chewie is used to following Han, who does the same kind of thing to slightly less successful results. He doesn’t hesitate, even when Leia’s response to a trooper turning the corner is to grab him around the middle and shove him as hard as she can into the wall. Chewie expertly fires a blaster bolt over her shoulder and into a chink in the trooper’s armor. Leia steals his gun and tosses it to Beru.

Ugh. She hates Imperial blasters. It’s like the Empire wants the troopers to miss.

They down their third trooper less than two minutes later, but this one manages to comm for backup. The precious few minutes that Chewie had bought them by locking their guard up are gone. Beru can barely hear past the thumping of her heart.

Leia seems to realize that they’re screwed, too.

“Head for the hanger. Chewie, do you think you’d be able to pilot a TIE?”

Chewie just looks at her, offended.

“I’m not leaving without Luke,” Beru snaps.

Still here, but gone. She’s not abandoning her child to her parents’ fate. Vader’s flesh and blood or not, there’s no way this doesn't end with Luke in chains of one kind or another. She won’t let it happen.

“This is—” Leia’s voice shakes a little, but there’s a certainty in her eyes that Beru hasn’t seen since Ben Kenobi on the Death Star. “This is the way it’s supposed to be.”

Beru thinks of the little saying that Luke has picked up in the last few months—trust in the Force. In the desert, the only thing you can reliably trust in is yourself. But Beru trusts in Luke. And this is exactly what he would do.

“If we don’t get to you, just get out,” Leia says in the voice she uses when she’s issuing orders. “Get back to Tatooine, get the droids, and try to figure out how to get Han back.”

There is not even the slightest chance in hell that Beru will leave this ship without Luke and Leia, but she doesn’t say so.

“I’ll see you both in a bit,” Leia says at last, like she can speak it into existence. “Be careful.”

As if either of them need the reminder.

* * *

Without Chewie and Beru, moving through the Star Destroyer is a little bit easier. Leia can duck around corners and hide in nooks and crannies whenever there’s that feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Leia has always had good instincts. But she’s never trusted them so completely before. It’s freeing in a way that she would have never believed. It just feels right, somehow.

Finally, the hallway around her begins to change. The blinding white gives way to a pale grey, and the harsh overhead lights dim. Officers quarters. She’s headed in the right direction.

The tugging feeling in her gut leads her to a door halfway down the hallway. She frowns at the door handle, finally understanding what Luke had said. When she reaches out with—with her feelings, or whatever—Luke is warmth and light. Vader is the empty coldness of space. But the locking mechanism feels like a void. She’s not going to be able to do anything with what she is staunchly refusing to refer to as the Force. She’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.

The bonus of having Luke stashed in the officers’ quarters is that there aren’t troopers passing by. Leia jams her fingernails under the panel and pulls up. Mechanics have never been Leia’s strong suit. Luckily, spending the last year on and off the Falcon has meant that she’s picked up a few tricks. Han knows techy shortcuts that her father’s friends teaching her the basics could have never dreamed of.

Finally, she draws back with a muffled yelp as the panel sparks. The door slides open. Leia grabs her blaster and bursts through to see Luke still sitting on the desk.

She grins. “My name is Leia Organa. I’m here to rescue you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah, I love a good dive into Beru backstory :D
> 
> on another note, I feel like Leia would absolutely be in denial about her ability to use the Force, but right now, she's too worked up to care.
> 
> coming next: the emperor makes his first appearance and I cry because his dialogue is so hard D:


	25. a valuable asset

“Leia!”

Luke nearly bowls her over in a hug, but Leia doesn’t mind. The last few hours have been rough. She really needs this hug.

She finally pries free of Luke’s arms to glance around the room. Leia raises an eyebrow at the sight of the desk chair in several pieces on the ground as she withdraws from Luke’s grip.

“Tried to beat down the door when I couldn’t use the Force on the lock.”

The reminder makes Leia’s stomach twist uncomfortably. As far as she knows, there aren’t any more rogue Jedi left. Vader had to have prepared that room—to have prepared it for Luke. Add to that the fact that there aren’t any guards, and you’ve got one massive mystery. Leia hates playing detective.

“How did you—?” Luke begins, but Leia cuts him off.

“The others are headed to the closest hanger to get a TIE warm for us.”

Luke grins. “Always wanted to take one of those for a spin.”

* * *

A deep unease has settled in Vader’s gut, and he can’t figure out why. He ought to be celebrating. He has a prisoner that just might know Yoda’s whereabouts. He has the annoying princess of Alderaan and the tools for a blood test that will tell him just how high her midichlorian count is. He has the woman that stole and hid his child from him.

Not to mention that child himself.

For the first time in a long time, everything seems to be going right. So why can’t he shake the feeling that something is wrong?

“My lord. You have an incoming transmission.”

Vader hasn’t felt fear like this in twenty years. He squashes it down as quickly as he can, buries it so deep that his master can’t feel it.

“I will take it in my quarters.”

Most likely, this is a conversation Vader does not want overheard. He doesn’t have the time to select a new bridge crew.He strides back to his quarters slightly faster than normal. If Palpatine knows what Vader thinks he knows, it won’t do to anger him unnecessarily. 

Finally, he accepts the call, dropping gracelessly to one knee. Twenty years in this suit haven’t totally taught him how to move in it.

“My master,” he greets.

The words grate in his throat. If he can only turn Luke, get him to accept his destiny, he’ll never have to kneel or use that hated word again.

“I have news,” his master says with a softness Vader knows perfectly well is affected, “of the Death Star pilot.”

His worst fear confirmed, Vader does his best to lean in eagerly for news of the man he’s supposedly been chasing for a year now.

“We recently captured a downed rebel pilot, and he was so kind as to provide us with a name.”

Vader steels himself. He’s been spending the last year hiding all evidence. It’s been difficult—his son seems to have inherited his parents’ penchant for attracting trouble. It appears that time has finally run out.

“The boy is called Skywalker.”

Vader lets a hint of shock trickle through his shields before he slams them shut again.

“A common name, my master.”

Among the slave families on Tatooine, anyway. He’d known a handful growing up, and none of them blood-related. He can’t help but hope that this will be enough to throw his master off the scent.

“But an uncommonly good pilot, Lord Vader. In all my life, I have only met one other that could have successfully made that shot.”

So he knows.

“Anakin Skywalker’s child died with his wife,” he grinds out at last.

His master smiles. “So I thought. But the boy lives. Trained by your old master, old friend. Stolen away hours after his birth.”

Vader clenches the fist not resting on his bent knee.

“Kenobi is dead. He cannot help Skywalker now.”

He forces his mind to wander away from the boy locked in officer quarters a few decks below him. He thinks of Kenobi, and the swell of anger that ripples through the Force must distract Palpatine.

“Skywalker is the last of the Jedi. He must be eliminated.”

Vader’s heart lurches. He’d always known that his master would find out about Luke, eventually, but this isn’t the reaction he’d dared hope for.

“He would be a powerful ally,” Vader says carefully, trying to gauge his master’s mood, “if he could be turned.”

He would have held his breath if he were still able. Instead, he waits as the respirator cycles. In, out. In, out. In, out.

“Perhaps,” he says at last. “Yes, good. He would make a valuable asset.”

He turns, and Vader gets the impression that his master is staring directly at him, even though he’s halfway across the galaxy.

“It will be done,” Vader says.

The hologram vanishes. Vader gets unsteadily to his feet. Now, more than ever, his limbs feel heavy and pained.

He needs to move, fast.

Vader hurries out of his rooms and heads down the hall. Now that Palpatine knows, it’s only a matter of time until he discovers where Luke is, if he doesn’t know already.

If his master doesn’t kill Luke immediately, he’ll try to turn son against father. And knowing his master, he’ll succeed.

He’s not exactly sure what his plan is, but the first step is to get back to Luke. The fear of the Emperor should be more than enough to get him to listen. But when he reaches the room where he’d left Luke, the door is open, and the panel in front of it is utterly mangled.

Organa.

They cannot possibly escape three times.

* * *

Beru and Chewie’s progress slows significantly without Leia guiding them. It seems as if they’re set upon by stormtroopers at literally every turn. Cheiwe is a crack shot, and Beru isn’t half bad herself, but it seems like only a matter of time until they’re too exhausted to keep up their breakneck pace.

Thankfully, the hanger bay comes into view before that happens.

Chewie very sensibly wallops the two officers on duty rather than shooting them so as to not alert the entire Star Destroyer to their presence. It’s nice to have a Wookiee on your side for that kind of thing. 

He leads the way on to the nearest TIE fighter. It opens with a single pass of the key card he’d lifted from one of the officers. Chewie motions for Beru to head to the back of the fighter. The weapons system is completely different from the Falcon’s, but a blaster is a blaster. Beru sinks into the seat and straps herself in.

She reaches for the joystick and gets it settled in her hand. Now, there’s nothing to do but wait. 

What is she going to tell Luke? Back in her cell, Beru had been considering not telling him. Clearly, Kenobi had decided against it, for whatever reason. Maybe he’d thought that Luke would follow in his father’s footsteps.

Beru shakes the thought away. There is nothing in the galaxy—no desire, no pain—that could ever turn her child into something like the monster that is Darth Vader.

Well.

There’s one thing that might make him angry enough. Beru touches her fingers to her bruised throat. Maybe she doesn’t need to tell him. There’s no reason for Luke to know that his father killed his mother.

Relief bubbles up in her chest at the sight of Luke and Leia tearing into the hanger. Leia is about a half step ahead of Luke, dragging him along. She spots Beru sitting in the turret and her face breaks into a broda smile.

Beru smiles back, but a moment later, it fades slowly from her face at the sight of someone else entering the hanger.

There is no way they escape three times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good thing they practiced this on the Death Star, right?


	26. everything that makes you weak

They were so close.

Leia’s lungs feel a little like she imagines they would if Luke were to shred them with his father’s lightsaber. As she takes a step forward, her run slows until it feels like running always does in a dream, like she’s dragging her legs through water.

She struggles to turn, holding the blaster steady. Leia only gets in two measured shots—which ought to have caught Vader in the throat and chestplate—before the blaster is ripped away by invisible hands. Beside her, Luke hasn’t even bothered to aim his weapon. Leia thinks he’s frozen until she realizes that his eyes are narrowed in concentration.

Leia can’t focus on him for long, though. Vader soaks up all her attention, even though he’s just standing there.

The creak and screech of metal on metal draws Leia’s attention. The TIE housing Aunt Beru and Chewie scrapes across the durasteel deck. Leia remembers what her father told her about Jedi in battle, and the cold pit grows in her stomach without Vader’s help.

“No!” Luke yelps as the TIE drags past a wall, showering sparks down.

Leia doesn’t know how he does it, but Luke rips free of the strange hold on them both and lunges.

Well. It was nice knowing him.

But when Vader ignites his saber and brings it down, somehow—impossibly—a blue blade rises to meet it. 

It takes a few moments for Leia to realize what’s happened. Vader had not one but two lightsabers on his belt. Leia is willing to bet that one of them was General Kenobi’s, and Luke has gotten his hands on it.

The Force holding Leia in places goes slack, and the TIE stops rotating. Leia’s eyes flick around the room. She doesn’t like the idea of cutting off any escape routes, but their best bet is another TIE, and the last thing they need is a herd of stormtroopers breathing down their necks. So Leia sprints for the doorway and makes quick work of the door controls. All it takes is her slamming her hand down on the close button and then yanking on a handful of wires.

Mission accomplished, she turns back to the battle. It’s nothing like the small part of the duel she’d witnessed between Vader and the general. That had been more of a conversation than a fight, both men moving fluidly through the motions but doing very little to actually attack.

This is brutal. Vader rains down blow after blow so hard that Leia can actually see Luke’s arms shaking with the effort of holding up against the onslaught. He’s fighting back, though—not with the grace of the Jedi in the few holos that Leia’s father had showed her when she was ten years old and wanted to hear about nothing but the Clones Wars for bedtime stories. Luke fights oddly like Vader, hacking more than aiming, sacrificing some of the quickness and agility that might have given him an edge to push back.

He’s moving Vader away, she realizes dimly, and suddenly the fight reminds her all too much of the one that killed General Kenobi.

* * *

“What do you mean the guns are offline?”

Beru’s Shyriiwook isn’t up to snuff, but Chewie’s elaborate pantomime had done a pretty good job of getting her up to speed. Rather than attempt to answer, Chewie gives a frustrated roar and sets to work on the computer. Beru’s blood roars in her ears as she stares out of the viewport at the fight below.

Beru is hardly an expert in swordplay, but she gets the feeling that Vader is pulling his punches. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s swinging a lightsaber at his own biological son, which makes Beru’s blood boil so much that she considers storming down there with nothing but her stolen Imperial blaster.

Logic makes her stay. If Chewie can get the blasters online, she’ll be much more effective here than on the ground. She saw what Vader could do to the TIE. She definitely doesn’t want to see what he could do to her.

“Hurry,” she urges Chewie.

Beru watches as Leia scoops up the blaster Luke abandoned in favor of a lightsaber, but she doesn’t shoot. Beru can’t blame her. At every opportunity, Vader either locks them so closely together that Leia can’t get a shot off, or expertly maneuvers Luke to act as a human shield.

A rock settles in the pit of Beru’s stomach. Though Vader is clearly winning the fight, it’s Luke that’s deciding the direction. And Vader is allowing him to do it. Has he decided to let them escape, provided that Luke doesn’t?

She feels the way she does when they jump to hyperspace. Her stomach lurches at the thought. She can’t leave Luke here, even if it means sacrificing herself, Chewbacca and Leia. It’s selfish, but Beru can’t help it. This is her child.

Finally, Chewie slams an enormous paw down on the dashboard, and the entire TIE hums as the system boots up. Beru hurls herself into the remaining seat and grabs hold of the controls. She’s only handled a ship’s blater once—she and Han had wound up alone in the Falcon during a mission gone particularly wrong—but it’s not that difficult. The computer helps aim. She doesn’t have a clear shot.

“Get ready,” she tells Chewie.

She’s taking the first opportunity she can get.

* * *

Vader is far more impressed with his son now than during their previous duel. It seems that the presence of his friends has prompted him to unlock the strength of the dark side. His son isn’t using it, exactly, but he’s certainly leaning on it. He wouldn’t be able to withstand the blows otherwise.

Vader twists his blade, locking them together. Luke pulls back, but he can’t get out of the hold.

“What is the point of this?” Luke snarls.

To Vader’s surprise, the boy lashes out with a foot. He’s nowhere near strong enough to knock Vader off his feet, but the move is unexpected enough that Luke manages to pull back.

“You have potential, Luke.”

Once again, the boy’s anger flares at the simple use of his given name. Vader files the information away for future use.

“Let go of everything that makes you weak.”

“My friends? My family?”

Something inside of Vader snaps on the last word. Luke has never known his family. Only a poor moisture farmer and his wife. He likely doesn’t even know his mother’s name. And he believes the lies Kenobi told him about his father, clings to them.

The old rage of his youth flares up like he hasn’t felt in the numbness of the last twenty years. He revels in it, welcomes it, and uses it.

The next time that Luke attempts to block his blade, Vader shoves off, hard, knocking Obi-Wan’s old, familiar blade aside as if this is a training exercise. Then, without pausing for so much as a moment, he brings his blade down.

Luke screams.

He drops to his knees on the durasteel with a resounding crack, but Vader knows full well that the pain of his severed hand must be drowning out whatever his kneecaps are feeling.

Vader lowers his blade. Both Luke and the princess are frozen. She still has the blaster trained on him, but seems too stunned to move.

The respirator struggles to keep up with the activity of the last few minutes.

“Your family is here.”

Luke’s eyes, fogged with pain, meet his the way they always do. It’s almost as if he somehow knows what’s coming next.

“I am your father, Luke.”

The boy howls, collapsing forward, hunched over his wound. The princess gasps.

“It is your destiny to join me. To overthrow the Emperor. To bring justice to the galaxy.”

Several things happen at once. The princess fires off a volley of shots as she springs forward. Luke flattens himself to the ground. And then the TIE opens fire. Vader catches sight of Beru Whitesun’s face, twisted in concentration before one of the blaster bolts—either from the princess or the ship—catches him in the chest.

Alarm bells ring in his ears as the suit depressurizes. Vader takes a step forward, but the lack of oxygen makes his head spin.

The princess lifts her hand and Kenobi’s old saber flies into her it as she hauls Luke’s good arm around her shoulders and books it.

Vader reaches out, but the hangar slowly fades from his vision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, Vader. 
> 
> that's the thing about the dark side, I think. in this universe, he's had a year to process Luke's existence. unlike in canon, the Death Star pilot never existed to him except as his child. but in the end, that anger still gets the best of him.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the visual of Beru just gunning for him from a TIE fighter as much as I did :P


	27. escapees

“Come on, stay with me!” 

Leia stares down at the dizzying array of buttons and switches in front of her. Thre’s no way she’s going to be able to get this stupid TIE off the ground herself, but Luke’s eyes are glassy, and they keep sliding shut.

She can’t take her real focus off of where Vader has fallen. He must be unconscious. A part of Leia wants to laugh at that and never stop. The most terrifying creature in the Empire, and all it takes is one blaster bolt getting past his defenses to take him down. 

She needs to find the blasters, so she can shoot Vader until she knows he’s dead. She needs to find the navicomputer so she can figure out where in all of the nine Corellian hells they are. She needs—

“Luke!”

Out of sheer instinct, she reaches out with her mind and shoves. Fatigue slams into her like a speeder, but Luke’s eyes flutter open and stay that way.

“Where’s Han?” he mumbles.

Leia’s heart stutters in her chest.

“Tell me what to do,” she orders instead of answering.

The blast doors fly open, and what seems like every single stormtrooper on the Star Destroyer surges into the hanger. A squadron surrounds the downed Sith, and the rest aim and fire. The TIE shudders, but doesn’t explode, which Leia takes as a victory.

“Comms,” Luke says.

He motions with his good hand—remaining hand, Leia thinks hysterically, shoving down the nausea that begins to climb in her throat—at a switch. Leia flicks it obediently, and the comms crackle.

“Luke!”

Aunt Beru’s voice. Some of the tension in Luke’s shoulders melts at the sound alone. The TIE continues to shake under the onslaught.

“Chewie’s sending you coordinates,” she says quickly.

Leia turns to Luke, who is slumped in his seat, the twin blows of losing his hand and gaining a father apparently too much.

“I need you,” she says, hating herself. “We haven’t gotten away yet.”

Luke blinks a few times, slowly, as he refocuses.

“Grab that.”

Leia follows his instructions and lets him guide her in bringing the TIE off the ground. She doesn’t have a pilot’s instincts, but she does have Luke’s voice in her ears. The ship falters a few times, but they manage to follow Chewie and Aunt Beru out of the hanger and into space, shots ringing out around them.

“TIEs can only make one jump,” Luke says. “We have to get a certain distance away from the flagship to do it. It’s meant to stop desertions. Biggs told me that once.”

Easy enough. Leia grips the controls so hard that her knuckles turn white. She hates flying. This reminds her too much of the first time her father had let her pilot.

She and Luke stiffen simultaneously.

“On your right,” Luke says, just as Leia jerks left with all of her strength.

The volley of blaster bolts sprays past them.

“Can you—?” Leia starts, but Luke is already grabbing the controls of the blasters with one hand.

Leia isn’t sure how good even Luke’s aim will be with a recently severed dominant hand, but she trusts him more than she does herself alone.

“180! I don’t have a clear shot!”

Leia’s stomach lurches as she swings the ship around. Luke fires once, twice, nailing two TIEs behind them.

“Do you—?”

“I see them!”

Leia swings around again in time for Luke to shoot down one of the TIEs screaming towards Chewie and Aunt Beru.

“Three, two—now, Leia!”

Leia slams her hand down on what she hopes to every star in the sky is the switch to jump to hyperspace. The stars surge around them. Leia falls back in her seat, letting out a breath that’s been sitting heavy in her chest for far too long.

“Nice...work.”

Luke drops back into his seat, his eyes rolling back into his head. Leia silently wills the ship to travel faster.

* * *

She hasn’t slept in close to two days, but Beru can’t bring herself to shut her eyes, despite Chewie’s pleading look, begging her to rest.

Worry churns in her gut. Luke can never find out the truth now. Knowing that it was his own biological father to kill his mother and maim him will be too much. Despite the trials of the last year, Beru’s kid is still innocent in a way that some people never are. She can’t bring herself to shatter that.

Finally, Chewie roars and the TIE drops out of hyperspace. Beru frowns—the moon looks deserted to her.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” 

Chewie rolls his eyes and leads the way on to a landing platform. Another Wookiee emerges from a door that looks as if it were cut directly out of the stone. Chewie speaks quickly, explaining the situation. Beru can’t bring herself to pay too much attention. She only relaxes when a second TIE lands.

It’s hardly the most graceful landing that she’s ever witnessed, but it’s not too shabby. Beru jerks away from the Wookiee trying to examine her bruising and bursts into a run towards the ship.

As she reaches the ramp, Leia hurries down it.

“I can’t carry him,” she says breathlessly.

Beru charges back into the ship. Her stomach flips when she lays eyes on Luke.

The hour or so they spent in hyperspace hasn’t been kind to him. Luckily, the cut of a lightsaber apparently cauterizes wounds so they didn’t have to worry about him bleeding out. Small mercies.

Beru isn’t a doctor or a med-droid by any stretch of the imagination, but she knows what shock looks like. It’s fairly characteristic of an injured escaped slave: blue lips, pale face, clammy hands. Beru brushes some of his hair back from his face, reassured by the unsteady rising and falling of his chest.

She doesn’t want to risk injuring him further, so Beru stands and waits, her fingers tangled in Luke’s for one of the Wookiees to board. One finally does, hiding a grimace at the sight of the injury. She gestures at Beru to let him go, then hoists him into her arms.

After that, there’s not much to do but follow the Wookiee until she bursts through a doorway and sets Luke gently on a gurney. Beru doesn’t need to speak Shyriiwook to recognize an order to stay where she is. Both of her hands ball into fists at her sides as Luke vanishes from sight.

“What is this place?”

She turns to Leia, who is still looking at the door as if she can summon Luke back through it if she stares hard enough.

Beru’s question snaps her out of it.

“I never thought about it,” she says softly, looking over at Chewie. “You’re from Kyshakk, aren’t you?”

Chewie howls mournfully. Leia lays her hand on his shaggy arm before turning back to Beru.

“When the Republic fell, theirs was one of the only planets to resist as the Empire took root.”

Beru thinks of the moisture farmers that, every few seasons, decide that they were going to buck the moisture tax. (Owen had told her once that Cliegg had tried that once. He hadn’t tried it again.)

“So these are refugees?”

Leia nods. “The Alliance has agreements with groups like this all over the galaxy, but I didn’t even know they existed.”

One of the Wookiees emerges from a side room and guides them down a hall into a room with a table and some chairs.

Beru finally submits to a few bacta patches on her bruising and an herbal smelling tea that helps soothe some of the residual pain in her throat. Chewie allows them to smear a bright green paste on his blaster wound.

Once they’re patched up the best the Wookiees can manage, someone brings them food. The soup is like nothing Beru has ever eaten before. It tastes earthy, reminding her of the few springs that she and Luke had hiked out to see whenever they were stationed somewhere green.

The thought of Luke makes her stomach roll. Beru pushes the plate away.

After several hours, the Wookiee who’d carried Luke away enters the room. They all stand up, but she puts up one finger. Easy enough to understand. Beru follows her to see Luke alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a bit like pulling teeth, but at least it's out in the world now :D
> 
> is that how TIE fighters work? I have no idea, but it is now :P


	28. healing

Luke looks so pale and so young against the bedsheets that Beru has to take a moment to blink back tears. With the rebels, it’s all too easy to ignore how young he is. With the exception of some of the leadership—holdouts from the Republic—the average age is quite young. Luke doesn’t stand out. But here, his age is impossible to ignore.

The Wookiee says something and the med-droid beside his bed whirrs to life.

“Hello. I am BT-9.”

Beru thinks guiltily of Threepio and Artoo. Hopefully they’re still with her ship back on Tatooine, not scuffed-up and sold for parts.

At least the droid speaks Basic. It doesn’t seem that any of the Wookiees do.

“What is the patient’s name?”

Even though Beru thinks the Wookiees won’t hand him over, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to give Luke’s real name.

Beru says the first name she can think of. “Owen. Um, Owen Solo.”

She hasn’t thought about Han in nearly a full day, and her stomach churns at the thought. She hopes he’s had the good sense to keep his mouth shut, though she knows hoping that is probably a lost cause where Han is concerned.

“Thank you. I will put it in his chart.”

“Can I touch him?”

BT-9 nods. “Avoid his wounds, but friendly contact will help the patient.”

Wounds, plural?

Beru had been distracted by the hand, so she’d hardly noticed anything else. Now, she does. His eye is blackened, and there is a burn mark poking up from underneath the collar of his gown.

Other than that—

“No prosthetic?”

Her heart clenches. Maybe lightsaber wounds are different. Maybe they won’t be able to fit one. Maybe the Wookiees want something in return they can’t give. Maybe—

“Some time is required. I have fitted the patient with a plate, which we will later use as a base for the prosthetic. We will need to manufacture one, as this patient is not of a species I ordinarily treat.”

Relief crashes over her. Luke will want to get moving again as quickly as he can. Learning how to do everything he’s used to doing with one fewer hand would be time-consuming.

“Thank you,” Beru says. “Is he sedated?”

“He’s surfacing now, ma’am. Try not to excite him.”

BT-9 powers down in the corner to give them some much-needed privacy. Beru settles in a chair that’s helpfully placed at the head of the bed. Luke’s nose scrunches slightly as she smoothes sweaty hair off of his forehead.

“Where are we?”

Beru opens her mouth to tell him, then realizes she doesn't have a clue.

“We’re safe.”

Luke slumps back into the pillows, skin a little paler from just the small effort of lifting his head. Beru runs her fingers through his hair. It’s getting long.

“I thought he was gonna—” Luke’s voice breaks.

He looks down at his wrist, as if noticing for the first time. His mouth twists—Beru wonders if the fight is coming back to him.

“Did you know?”

The exhaustion melts away from Luke’s face as anger sets in. Beru remembers that durasteel stubbornness from teenaged screaming matches with Owen, but it’s never been directed at her before.

“Know what?”

Luke lurches upright. One of the machines he’s hooked up to screeches a warning, but Luke ignores it.

“You all lied,” he snarls.

Suddenly, Beru knows exactly where this is going.

“You and Uncle Owen and Ben—you all lied to me!”

Beru lets out a surprised yelp as her feet and the chair she’s in leave the ground. For a moment, she thinks that the gravitational field around the facility has failed. Then, she registers that Luke and his bed have remained firmly on the ground.

BT-9 doesn’t stir. That’s good. Beru doesn’t need a med-droid to know about Luke’s abilities.

“Luke,” she begins, but it’s clear that he isn't listening.

Beru gets the distinct feeling that if he were able, he’d be pacing. Instead, he balls his sheets into fists at his sides.

“How could you not tell me what I was?” Luke shouts.

“Luke,” Beru repeats in what she feels is a remarkably calm voice for someone who is currently hovering three inches off of the ground.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

His voice cracks on the last word, and he folds forward, face crumpling. All the medical equipment, including BT-9, lands hard. Beru braces herself for the same treatment, but the Force deposits her gently on the ground again. Beru reaches forward cautiously, half afraid that she’ll start floating again.

“Luke.”

He looks up, pitiful with a blotchy red face interrupted here and there with bacta patches. Beru gingerly shifts herself to sit on the edge of the bed. When she reaches for Luke’s hand, he withdraws. Beru swallows the hurt.

“I didn’t know.”

She can’t speak for Owen, but she knows her dead husband better than anything. He’d loved Luke every bit as much as she had in his own gruff way, but if he’d known the truth. Beru knows he would have forced Ben Kenobi to take him back.

He and Beru had barely been able to protect Luke from the Hutts. Owen would have thought that Luke would have been safer with people like him.

“We didn’t know,” she says at last, because Luke is still staring at her with bloodshot eyes. “Owen and I met him, Luke. There was no reason to think he would become—” A mass-murdering cyborg slaver— “that.”

The anger bleeds out of Luke’s face, but the despair that replaces it worries Beru just as much, if not more. This time, though, when she reaches for his remaining hand, he takes her offer, squeezing back gratefully.

“But you know now.”

Beru nods. “He told me. I think I surprised him by not knowing.”

Honestly, what had Vader been expecting? Kenobi dropping Luke off and then dropping that bomb?

“Does anyone else—”

Beru shakes her head. “No. I imagine Leia heard him, but she loves you. She won’t hold it against you.”

The relief in his face makes Beru furious at Vader all over again.

“Ben knew. He knew and he didn’t tell me.”

Oddly enough, Beru thinks she can forgive him for that. Owen never let him get near Luke, and it wasn’t like the trip to Alderaan had been the right time or place for that conversation.

“Maybe he truly believed your—Ana—Vader was dead,” Beru suggests gently. “He’s not exactly...recognizable.”

Luke shakes his head. “He put him in that suit.”

A gasp rises in Beru’s throat, but she manages to hold it there. She doesn’t feel sympathy for Vader—far from it. All she can think is that Kenobi was given a chance to spare the galaxy (to spare  _ Luke _ ) pain, and he’d squandered it.

“He was afraid of me,” Luke concludes. “Ben, I mean. Afraid of what I could be.”

Beru shakes her head. “No.”

“He was afraid I’d turn out just like my father, so he didn’t tell me.”

There’s that almost an electric buzz in the air again, like back on Tatooine before Leia managed to get Vader away from Han.

“Luke,” Beru tries for what feels like the thousandth time in the conversation.

“What if he’s right?” Luke turns worried blue eyes on her. “Vader—he’s angry. All the time.”

Beru thinks of the invisible fingers around her neck and finds that she agrees.

“And so am I,” Luke continues. His remaining fist curls into a fist. “I’m furious. So furious I can’t stand it.”

All the objects in the room rattle once more, but this time, Beru doesn’t move.

“And I try to control it, but—”

Beru finally cuts him off. “Exactly. You try to control it. You don’t let it rule you. You don’t choke people for disagreeing with you.”

Luke finally looks away. Beru takes a breath as she figures out how best to put it.

“Do you remember when you were little and Jabba’s people nearly cleared out the Darklighters’ harvest?”

Hesitantly, Luke nods.

“I’d never been so scared in my life,” Beru remembers with a laugh. “You sneaked off in the middle of the night to give them a piece of your mind.”

“Uncle Owen said I’d send him to an early grave.”

They both digest that for a moment. Beru blinks back pointless tears.

“How did you feel?”

“Angry, I guess, but—”

“Exactly.” Beru smiles, triumphant. “But you didn’t do it because you were angry, did you?”

Luke shakes his head. “It was wrong. I wanted to fix it.”

“And that's the difference. You did what you did not because you were angry but because it was wrong. You’ve been doing that your whole life. That hasn't changed.”

Apparently, settled, Luke falls back against his pillows again.

“Get some rest,” Beru says.

What she doesn’t say is: you’ll need it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ironically, Beru has stumbled on an important Jedi teaching here: emotions can come and go, but you can't let them rule you. I think it's probably an important idea on Tatooine, too. you can't let yourself get distracted by being upset or angry or scared; you still have to do the job.


	29. dagobah dreams

Six weeks later, Luke is nearly used to his prosthetic. If it weren’t for the lack of a particularly distinctive freckle, Beru might not have even been able to tell the difference. He even cracks a few jokes--mostly about always having a spare battery if necessary--so Beru has cause to hope that he might be able to put his duel with Vader behind him.

Beru spends her time learning a few new recipes and distracting Leia and Chewie from their worry about Han while Luke catches up on physical therapy. She’s in the middle of sampling one of her new meals when Luke wanders into the kitchen. Aside from the fact that he has Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber clipped to his hip, rather than his father’s and a faint seam on his right wrist, nothing has changed.

“Hand me that spoon, will you?”

Luke falls into step beside her easily. Beru misses cooking with him like back on the homestead.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

Beru pauses her work with the batter for only a moment before resuming her mixing.

“What is it?”

Luke takes a breath. “I don’t think Ben was the only surviving Jedi.”

Beru adds a few sprinkles of a spice that one of the Wookiees had recommended.

“What makes you think that?”

It doesn’t seem entirely far-fetched. Beru honestly doesn’t know much about the Clone Wars, but there had been propaganda footage to reach Tatooine. If the Jedi were half the warriors the holos had made them out to be, then killing all of them would have been rather difficult.

“I’ve been dreaming.”

Beru tries to school her expression into something neutral, but she isn’t quite quick enough to catch her eyebrow raise. She may have accepted some things about the Force, but that still seems a little unbelievable.

“It’s Ben,” Luke explains quickly. “And a word, over and over again. Dagobah. I looked it up in one of the navicomputers. It’s a system, but I’d never heard of it before.”

Beru wants to remark that neither of their cut-short educations are much good for galactic geography, but she holds back.

Instead: “You want to go there.”

Luke nods. “And I want to rescue Han. Believe me, I do. But I have this feeling that I can’t do that without going to this system first.”

Beru sighs. She doesn’t have a lot of faith in the idea of rescuing Han. She’s seen plenty of escaped slaves over the years, but none of the rescue missions Beru had ever heard of had been successful. Mostly, they ended with the would-be rescuers in chains of their own.

If Luke is right--if Ben Kenobi wasn’t the last Jedi after all--then Lule might be able to learn something.

(A snide voice in the back of Beru’s head reminds her that the Jedi, in her experience, weren’t exactly freers of slaves. She thinks of Shmi, then buries that thought as deep as she can.)

“Fine,” Beru says at last. “When do we leave?”

Luke clears his throat, and Beru swears.

“You can’t be serious.”

He winces. “If it makes you feel better, I’m trying to convince Leia to come with me.”

It doesn’t, really. Beru is every bit as protective of Leia as Luke at this point, so letting them go off alone--even together--makes her nauseous. Plus, there’s a part of her that stings a little at the thought that Luke wants a different companion.

“Has she agreed?”

Luke makes a face. “Well. She hasn’t said no, exactly. She wants to rescue Han straight away, but--”

“You think you need to do this first,’ Beru finishes, pinching the bridge of her nose between her forefinger and thumb.

Luke’s face falls. “You think it’s crazy.”

Beru clamps down on the instinctive ‘yes’ response.

“No. I’m just--nervous.” A horrible thought occurs to her. “Vader is a Force-user, isn’t he? What if he’s the one in your dreams?”

Luke flinches minutely at the name, but he recovers quickly.

“No. He feels very distinct. Right now, he’s very far away.”

Something cold settles in the pit of Beru’s stomach.

“You can... feel him right now?”

Luke’s mouth twists in distaste. “Since he...told me, I can feel him. Like there’s this string tying us together.”

Beru shivers. “Do you think he can follow it?”

Luke shakes his head. “I think if he could do that, he’d be here already.”

That’s a chilling thought. Despite herself, Beru glances at the door, as if Vader is going to burst through it at any moment.”

“You’ve still got contacts on Tatooine, don’t you?”

Beru nods. “They probably think I’m dead, but it shouldn’t take much to show them that I’m not.”

She and Owen had slowed a lot of their activity with that crew once they’d started looking after Luke, but he knows about it.

“You and Chewie can go to work figuring out where Han is and finding the droids. We’ll meet up and save him.”

He makes it sound so easy in his Rogue Squad leader voice. But there’s a hint of durasteel that tells Beru that he won’t be backing down. And unlike Owen, she’s not ready to fight on this one.

Instead: “All right.”

* * *

Leia keeps dreaming of her father.

In the dreams, Bail never has a voice. He just stares at her with sad eyes, mouth open in a silent scream. Morbidly, Leia wonders if that was what he’d looked like as he’d died.

On the third night, he finally speaks.

Leia wakes to Luke’s artificial hand on her shoulder, the left pushing her braids away from her face.

“You were having a nightmare,” he explains.

Leia pulls back her covers, grimacing at the feel of sweat, and pats the space beside her.

“My father,” she explains shortly.

Luke nods. It’s strange. On the bridge of the Death Star, Leia had assumed that no one but the survivors of Alderaan’s destruction would ever be able to understand the way she felt. But Luke, ripped away from all he’d ever known, save his aunt, came pretty close. 

He slides in beside her.

“He said the name of that system you told me about.”

The rational part of Leia says that the Bail Organa her mind has conjured up only said the word  _ Dagobah _ because it’s been on her mind. But the other, instinctual part of her that she is only just beginning to trust says otherwise.

It’s not her father, but something in the universe is urging her to trust Luke.

“Are you coming?”

She’s going to live to regret this, but Leia nods.

The next day is a flutter of activity. Luke and Aunt Beru make a series of plans for meeting up on Tatooine. Chewie negotiates with the other Wookiees, eventually trading in the TIEs for two freighters that look to be in even worse shape than the Falcon.

Finally, it’s time to go. All four of them stand awkwardly in the hanger bay, trying to get up the nerve to be the first to board their ship.

“Comm if there’s trouble,” Aunt Beru says.

“You too.”

Leia almost feels like she has to turn away when Luke and his aunt embrace. She feels like she’s intruding on a private moment.

“You get to define trouble,” Aunt Beru says, turning her eyes on Leia. “You and I both know he’s not much good at it.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “You do the same, Chewie.”

The Wookiee roars his assent before sweeping both her and Luke up in a hug that lifts them off of the floor. When he puts them down, Aunt Beru places a kiss on Leia’s cheek.

“We’ll see you again soon,” she says, and her voice only warbles a little bit.

* * *

The sunset on Dagobah doesn’t really make much of a difference, but Yoda usually watches it from atop his home anyway.

“Early, they are,” he observes to the ghostly apparition beside him.

“Oh no, Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan Kenobi says, settling his non-existent robes around him. “I think they’re right on time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t believe I haven’t said this before, but if y’all want to yell at me about Beru on tumblr, I’m at goodfemalecharacters and am always looking for more content lol
> 
> also I feel like Beru has some complicated Jedi emotions bc of her experiences with them (through Shmi)!


	30. the simplest truth

“Not a lot of life forms on the scanner,” Leia notes, squinting down at the panel to see if the reading has changed in the six seconds that have passed since she last checked.

No such luck.

“Either too big or too small to be sentient.”

There are tales of massive beings out past the far reaches of the Outer Rim, but Leia has never really believed those.

“Too big,” Luke says. “Great.”

Despite his misgivings, he starts the landing procedure. Leia fastens herself into the seat as she watches him flip switches and turn dials.

“You know this is objectively insane, right?”

She’s been thinking it since the moment they took off, but this is the first time that Leia has actually voiced it.

“Yep.”

It’s a testament to how much she likes Luke that Leia doesn’t object again as they descend into mist so thick that Leia expects it to seep into the cockpit.

“Can you see any—” Leia begins after a few minutes.

Thunk.

Leia slams back in her seat, teeth rattling as the ship comes to an unexpected halt.

“You okay?”

Leia nods, flexing her shoulders as she unbuckles herself.

“I think so. You?”

Luke nods. “Yeah. Can’t say the same for the ship, though.”

That’s not good. Leia really doesn’t want to die on what looks like—from the little she can see out of the slightly submerged viewport—a swamp planet.

“Right. Come on.”

She leads the way out of the ship, sinking herself in hip-deep water. They emerge on to what Leia supposes counts as a shore.

“I thought I'd never get tired of water,” Luke grouses, wringing out the hem of his shirt.

They stare back at the ship. Leia is hardly an expert, but she’s fairly certain that it won’t be going anywhere any time soon.

“What exactly are we looking for?”

Her voice echoes strangely in the swamp, carrying over the water like a skipping stone. Luke spins in a slow circle as if the answer to Leia’s question will materialize in front of him.

“Let’s make camp,” he suggests.

The Wookiees armed them with plenty of supplies so they won’t be starving. Not any time soon, anyway. 

They elect not to start a fire, considering what they'd seen on the scanners, so they sit side by side with their back against the box of supplies.

Leia is about to drift off despite herself when something stirs in front of them. Leia’s hand flies to her blaster, and Luke’s to General Kenobi’s lightsaber as they both lunge to their feet.

But it’s just a small green figure holding a stick like a cane. All of the air exits Leia’s lungs in a woosh. She knows that figure. Not personally, of course. The Jedi were already gone by the time Leia was born. But her father had been thorough, raising her on stories from the Clone Wars. She’d even seen a few holos.

It’s pretty hard to mistake General Yoda for someone else.

Luckily, Leia’s extensive diplomatic training kicks in. She clears her throat, straightens her shoulders, and inclines her head respectfully in his direction.

“General.”

Beside her, Luke stares. “General?”

“Have that title any longer, I do not.”

That doesn’t stop Leia from holding herself at attention. This man once commanded a large swath of the GAR. He deserves the title, even if he doesn’t recognize it.

“Leia—” Luke begins, but Leia gives him a look and he falls silent.

“I’m Leia Organa, and this is Luke Skywalker. Our fathers served with you in the Clone Wars.”

Luke flinches at the reminder, and Leia winces internally. These last few weeks, she’s been trying so hard to forget what happened to Anakin Skywalker that she actually manages it on occasion.

Something almost like humor crosses that wrinkled face before the placid Jedi returns.

“Know who you are, I do.”

Yoda lowers himself to sit across from them, legs folded. Leia follows suit. After a moment, Luke does, too, though with a furrowed brow.

“This is Master Yoda,” Leia says quietly. “The head of the Jedi Order.”

The ration bar Luke was holding hits the ground.

General Yoda does not renounce that particular title, but his ears droop somewhat. Leia can sympathize. She’ll always be the princess of Alderaan, even if there isn’t an Alderaan anymore.

“Ben sent us,” Luke says once he manages to find his words again. “Ben Kenobi.”

General Yoda sighs. “Always causing problems, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

From the stories Leia had heard from her father, that’s fairly accurate.

Luke straightens up. “He was a great man.”

Leia shoots him a warning look, but Luke is too wrapped up in his defense of General Kenobi to notice. His eyes are narrowed, locked on General Yoda’s.

“Much like his father, he is,” the general comments lightly to the thin air beside him.

Luke’s eyes narrow further. “I’m not like him! I’m nothing like him!”

His hands tighten into fists. Leia can hear the metal of his cybernetic hand creaking against itself under the synthskin.

“Angry, the comparison makes you.”

Any of the dutiful respect Leia had felt towards him evaporates.

“Of course it does!” she snarls.

The general’s eyes land on her, steady and so very, very old. But Leia was sixteen years old when she was elected to the Imperial Senate. She’s used to old beings trying to throw their weight around.

“He’s nothing like Vader and he never will be.”

The corner of Luke’s mouth twitches as if she’s praised him when all she’s done is speak the simplest truth she knows.

“And if you don’t believe that,” Leia continues, “then we have no reason to be here.”

She crosses her arms. The old general looks on quietly, eyes calculating.

“Too old, too stubborn.”

Leia bristles, but Luke beats her to speak.

“Too old for what?”

“Not for everyone, the path of the Jedi.”

Luke’s jaw is set in a way Leia has come to recognize. He’s not going to back down, not now.

“It’s the path for me,” he says, his hand straying to General Kenobi’s lightsaber on his hip. “I’m not my father. And I can prove it.”

General Yoda frowns. “A good reason to train, that is not.”

“It’s my destiny,” Luke insists.

It’s the same certain voice he uses when he's correctly predicting the trajectory of a starfighter or cheating at sabacc with Han.

“More than one fate, each of us has.”

Luke shakes his head. “Not me. I swear it.”

The old Jedi seems to ponder this and then accept it. He turns to Leia, eyes intense.

“And you?”

Leia remembers sword fighting with the children of her parents’ rebel friends in hushed voices. Remembers pestering her father for every last Jedi story he could remember when he tucked her in at night. But this—this isn’t make-believe. She shakes her head.

“I’m here to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”

* * *

There’s a possibility that Han has been recaptured by the Empire, Beru reflects as she and Chewie touch down on Tatooine. But if Beru knows anything, it’s that real authority—the REpublic, the Imps, or otherwise—has no real place in Hutt space. She’s not that worried. He’s probably still onworld.

Chewie lets out a moan as they make their way out of the ship. Beru pats him on the shoulder.

“It’ll be all right. I’ll let you have the first sonic once we get out of here.”

Wookiees aren’t built for the heat or the sand. Beru wonders why he ever let Han drag him on to this planet in the first place.

Mos Eisley is every bit as terrible as she remembers, but this time, they can’t leave immediately. A spaceport is a good place to go for information.

“Keep your head down,’ Beru advises.

She doesn’t need to tell Chewie twice. He pulls a cowl borrowed from one of the other Wookiees over his face and sticks close behind her. 

They meander through the streets. Mos Eisley is larger than Anchorhead, but the layout is similar. All towns on Tatooine have to be built to withstand sandstorms and scorching heat, and there are only so many ways to do that.

The houses get smaller, the streets narrower, until Beru feels like she can breathe again. This, at least, is familiar. Her eyes dart over doorways until she finally finds the one she’s looking for.

There’s a small white sun painted above the door.

Beru taps on the door in a rhythm she learned from her mother. When it opens, she forces a smile.

“I’m Beru Whitesun, and this is Chewbacca. We need a favor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luke: defends Obi-Wan despite knowing the guy personally for approximately 24 hours
> 
> Yoda: oh god. it's anakin 2.0
> 
> anyway I came to the realization the other day that Yoda thought that he was raising the first generation of Jedi to outlive him, only to watch literally all of them die, so that really painful thought has been informing his characterization here.
> 
> the idea of a white sun comes from the Queen's Shadow novel, which sort of implies that it's an anti-slavery symbol on Tatooine :D that fit nicely with my explanation of Beru's last name, so I stole it.


	31. another revelation

As far as Leia can tell, Jedi training involves quite a lot of standing on your head. It’s not a skill she thinks likely came up a lot back when the Jedi were the galaxy’s peacekeepers. If there’s another lesson buried in there, Leia can’t see it. She was never one for metaphors anyway.

While Luke spends his days floating pebbles and learning new balancing tricks, Leia tries to figure out how to get the old freighter out of the swamp. No amount of little-known tech tricks picked up from Han seems to help, though, so she mostly sits and stares at it and wonders how the Alliance is faring without one of their best pilots and one of their leaders.

At least four times a day, Leia wonders if she would have been better off going with Aunt Beru and Chewie.

“Hey.”

Luke drops into a crouch beside her, pushing his sweaty hair out of his face.

“You smell,” Leia tells him matter-of-factly.

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t smell so great yourself.”

He’s not wrong. There’s not a functional sonic anywhere in sight, and the water is all murky and disgusting. There aren’t many ways to clean up.

“At least I’m not sweaty.”

“True. Just covered in swamp slime,” he says with a grin.

Leia grimaces. Her work with the freighter had caused her to tumble into the muck today.

He flops down beside her, smile not wavering.

“Did you finally manage to come down from standing on your head without falling?” 

He nods. “One less bruise today.”

Leia hums in agreement, but doesn’t take her eyes off of the freighter. Luke sighs. Leia really doesn’t feel like having his argument again; he can’t understand why she doesn't want to learn about the Force or how to use a lightsaber.

“Dinner is in a few.”

Leia grimaces. “Is it that—?”

“Stew again? Yep.”

At least they won’t have to worry about their dwindling ration bars.

Dinner is, as usual, a quiet affair. General Yoda seems to put a lot of emphasis on enjoying food properly, which means eating in silence. Afterwards, he takes Luke aside to meditate. Leia declines the offer to join them; just sitting around certainly won’t help her quiet her thoughts. Probably the opposite. Instead, Leia decides to call it a night. It’s dark enough, anyway.

She curls up in the tent she and Luke have set up and closes her eyes. What feels like moments later, they slide open again. Except now, Luke is beside her, snoring lightly, one arm flung over her waist, and the tent is lit by a blue glow. Leia glances down, but General Kenobi’s lightsaber is unignited at Luke’s side. So what’s causing—?

“Hello, my dear.”

Leia jolts, accidentally knocking Luke’s arm off of her as she surges upright. There’s a man standing in the dark, and he’s glowing like a holo. Leia glances back at Luke, but he doesn’t stir.

“He won’t wake unless I want him to,” the apparition tells her.

“Who—” She blinks as the apparition becomes clearer. “General Kenobi?”

He appears to Leia to be halfway between the man she remembers from her father’s holos and the man from the Death Star, as if his form is dictated by her expectations. Maybe it is.

“Why don’t we take a walk,” he says gently.

Leia glances back at Luke, but true to the general’s word, he doesn’t stir.

“I don’t—”

“Come, Leia.”

Despite her misgivings, Leia follows General Kenobi out into the clearing. The mist is so thick it might as well be rain. Leia tugs her thin blanket more firmly over her shoulders.

“You’re not training,” General Kenobi observes, leading the way through the swamp.

Leia had been hoping for an explanation as to why a ghost was visiting her, but it seemed that General Yoda’s crypticness is a truly Jedi trait.

Fantastic.

“I’m no Jedi. What I can do—it’s not the Force. I mean, it is. But—”

He smiles gently as he cuts her off. “Bail told you to close your mind, didn’t he, Leia?”

“He was protecting me,” Leia snaps.

General Kenobi nods. “As he swore to do. It was a clever trick. A powerful Force-user can essentially lock their connection to it if under significant duress. Then, another stress could unlock it again.”

Then why, Leia wonders, had her connection not awoken on the bridge of the Death Star to stop Tarkin’s trigger finger?

“I’m not meant to be a Jedi,” she insists. “I’m a politician. A soldier. Not a—a mystic.”

General Kenobi finally finds an appropriate place to come to a stop. He seats himself on a log and motions for her to join him.

“Leia.” He takes a deep breath, despite the fact that Leia is pretty sure that he doesn't actually need air. “Search your feelings, and you’ll find that that’s not true.”

Leia shakes her head, refusing to look him in those kind eyes.

“How do you think you came to your mother and father?”

Leia’s stomach twists as she remembers childhood musings, her mother shaking her head and laughing at her runaway imagination.

“My father used to tell me stories about the Clone Wars. Show me holos, before it got too dangerous to keep them.” She smiles despite herself. “He told me about you. That if I was ever in trouble, I could call for you and you would come.”

“Well,” General Kenobi says with a small laugh. “I certainly did my best.”

Leia can’t take the feeling building in her gut any longer.

“When I was a girl,” she says, “I thought that I was a child of the Jedi, rescued from the Purges.”

The General looks on, unblinking, as Leia unspools the truth. 

“Sometimes, I thought you were my father.”

It had made sense to a child. Her father and mother had been friends of Kenobi’s during the war, and Bail’s insistence on her going to him in case of emergency had only solidified her theory.

“But you’re not, are you?”

There’s a part of her that wishes he’ll say that he really is her father. But that part dies a quick, disappointed death.

“I wish I were, my dear. It would cause you far less pain.”

That can only mean one thing. Leia swallows, but her throat still feels thick.

“Luke isn’t Vader’s only child, is he?”

* * *

The medbay has been cleared out. 

Vader is seated upright in the bed closest to the door, fiddling with the front panel of his suit himself. He wouldn’t put it past one of Palpatine’s Inquisitors to pose as a medic and try to smother him or something like that. So he’s stuck doing his own repairs now that he’s conscious again.

Vader was lucky that the group to find him had been made up of stormtroopers, not officers. They know what it’s like to fight and get unlucky. None of the officers have ever had to get their hands dirty in their entire lives.

Finally, Vader’s tinkering pays off. Air fills his fragile lungs once, twice, three times, and his head clears. It’ll be easier to fix the rest of the damage now that he has oxygen to the brain.

He decides to take a break from his tinkering. Instead, he leans back in the bed—a strange sensation, considering he hasn’t slept in one in twenty years—and turns the med-droid on with the Force. It whirs to life.

“BT-3,” he says. “I need you to analyze a blood sample.”

The princess’ blood is stored in a vial in a cabinet nearby. The med-droid picks it out and begins standard data collection.

If it weren’t for the ventilator keeping his breath steady, it would have stopped when the med-droid reads off the girl’s midichlorian count. 

“Impossible.”

It doesn’t match his own, of course, but it easily surpasses even the most talented masters of the old order. Bail Organa had been as Force-sensitive as a rock. Then how—?

“I can recheck, my lord,” BT-3 chirps.

There’s no need. From the moment the girl had truly opened herself up to the Force, he’d been able to feel her in it. Her strength matches Luke’s.

Matches Luke’s.

No.

That would be utterly ridiculous, wouldn’t it?

But Vader’s life and Anakin’s before it has been filled with coincidence and oddity that nothing but the Force could explain. He knows better than to leave so much as a stone unturned.

“Complete a DNA comparison.”

The droid whirs for a moment before asking. “A comparison against whom, Lord Vader?”

“Me.”

This test takes a little longer. Vader’s still-damaged suit works doubletime to calm his racing heart.

“It is a match, Lord Vader.”

He lets out a noise that the mask is unable to interpret, straining his throat. When he opens his eyes again, BT-3 is a pile of scrunched-up scrap metal, and the princess’—Organa’s—his  _ daughter’s _ —blood is dripping sluggishly on to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
> 
> this was NOT in my original plot for this story, but I couldn't resist! I needed a convo with Obi-Wan at some point, and I love a good old fashioned Vader POV, so they both showed up :D
> 
> note that Vader knew the truth approximately six weeks before Leia did--the chronology of this chapter doesn't line up, but the themes do lol


	32. doubletalk

The boy who’d answered the door is probably around twelve years old. Beru’s heart clenches as she thinks about Luke at that age. He leads them into the kitchen where his mother and father are sitting.

“Whitesun?” says the man with the same level of distrust in his voice that Owen would have had in the same situation. 

It’s comforting in a way that easy acceptance wouldn't have been.

“My aunt and uncle were Tam and Tod,” she confirms with a nod. “They lived out past Anchorhead.”

The man’s gaze lingers on Chewie, but it's an appraising glance, not a suspicious one. Having a Wookiee on board actually helps her here. As a race, they tend to be viciously anti-slavery; being creatures that get locked up pretty regularly tends to do that.

“I knew Tam when I was a girl,” the woman says, steady. “I loved her cooking.”

Beru arches an eyebrow. “Must not be Aunt Tam you’re talking about. She couldn't cook to save her life. Now, vaporators. Those she knew.”

Husband and wife lock eyes and nod. Beru smiles. It was a good test; doubletalk is second nature to chainbreakers.

“I thought you were dead,” the man says. “We heard that Tam and Tod’s niece had been killed by Imps a little over a year ago.”

“They tried,” Beru says grimly. “And they’ve kept on trying, believe me. I’ve been offworld for a while.”

The boy oogles her. “And you came back?”

Beru nods. Even if she didn’t have to return for Han, there is a part of her—a large party—that will always belong to the desert.

“What brought you back?” asks the father.

“A friend.”

* * *

She has a brother.

Knowing that she shares this terrible burden with Luke is one of the few things that have allowed Leia to cling to her sanity. She hasn’t managed to broach the subject with him yet; she feels like it will only be the truth if she speaks it into being.

Luke is busy with his evening meditations one night when the general approaches her.

“Spoke to you, Obi-Wan did.”

Leia nods. She still isn’t quite sure how to act around the old Jedi. Luke seems to understand him in a way that Leia just can’t. Of course, Luke seems to understand people—not how to rally them to his cause or make them see reason, but the people themselves—in a way that Leia doesn’t.

“Come.”

The general’s tone leaves no room for argument. Leia follows him into the structure—she’s been trying and failing to come up with a better word than hut to describe it. He sets about making tea, so Leia drops into a heap on the ground.

“Why didn’t they tell me?” she whispers, mostly to herself.

Bail and Breha had never kept her adoption a secret. They’d made sure she’d known she was as much their daughter as a biological one would have been. But they’d never entrusted her with the horrible truth.

“In danger, you and your brother were,” General Yoda says.

Leia has seen the footage of Padmé Amidala’s funeral—every young politico in the Empire has. She has a sneaking suspicion that Luke’s biological mother—their biological mother—didn’t just die in childbirth. She doesn’t doubt that they were in danger the moment they were born.

“I can keep a secret,” Leia says sharply. “And I can take care of myself.”

Her hands clench into involuntary fists at her sides at the memory of Vader crowding her against the wall of her tiny cell on the Death Star. If she’d known the truth then, would she have still been able to spit in his face? Or would the knowledge have paralyzed her?

“Always two Sith, there are,” the general explains as he presses a cup of tea into Leia’s hands. “Too weak to overthrow his master alone, Vader is. But with an apprentice, strong he would be.”

Leia frowns. From what she’d heard from her real father, Vader has spent the last twenty years hunting down all the Force-sensitives that he can find and killing them, not recruiting them.

The old Jedi chuckles as if he can read her mind. Maybe he can.

“Strong enough for him, they were not.”

There’s a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’s suddenly reminded that she’s one of the last survivors of two separate genocides.

“But Luke and I—”

“Powerful enough, yes.” The general sips his tea; his ears droop as he slowly relaxes. “Protected, you had to be, and protected, you were.”

Leia swallows past the lump in her throat. She’d always known that her mother and father loved her, but she’d never known how much they’d risked to raise her. She lets out a shuddering breath.

“Loved, Senator Organa said you would be with him. Right, he was.”

Leia brushes tears out of her eyes.

“I think I understand now,” she says softly. “I need to talk to Luke.”

She ducks out into the muggy night air. Weirdly, she’s almost getting used to the swamp.

“Hey.”

She settles on the ground beside Luke, who opens his eyes, blinking slowly as he reenters the world.

“We need to talk.”

He yawns. “Not much else to do here.”

Leia’s hands feel clammy, even to her, but she takes Luke’s hands in hers anyway.

“Padmé Amidala had twins.”

Luke sits bolt upright, any of the warmth of his meditation bleeding away as he stares at her, eyes wide.

“What?”

Leia nods. “She had two children, Luke.”

His knuckles whiten as he tightens his grip on her. Leia doesn’t mind the pressure. It keeps her grounded when everything feels a little like it’s spinning.

“You mean—?”

Leia wants to hate him, just a little bit, for the hope that tinges his voice. He doesn’t want to be the only one carrying this horrible burden. But she can’t hate him for that.

“Yes.”

He yanks his hands free of hers and Leia’s stomach drops. His rejection now would hurt her more than anything else. But Luke throws his arms around her neck and hauls her into a hug.

“I could feel it,” he says hoarsely.

When he draws back, Leia can see tears in his eyes. As normal, he blinks them back—no wasting water. Her breath catches in her lungs, then her throat.

Then, his mouth twists unhappily. “Leia. I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t know everything that happened between her and Vader, but he knows enough. Leia’s face crumples, and she lets Luke pull her into his arms again.

* * *

He must really hate himself.

Under the guise of rebel-hunting—no one has heard anything from the princess in two months—Vader heads to the Imperial Senate archives. No one has touched them since the body’s dissolution, so it’s easy to walk along the towering shelves without notice to select a disk.

He brings it back to his quarters, much like he did with the information about his son.

The holo nearly takes his breath away. He’d known about Leia Organa for several years, of course, but he’d never allowed himself to compare the girl to Padmé. Now, it’s all he can do.

She’s sharp in a way Skywalker’s wife never was, but she has her mother’s passion and way with words. Even in the farce of the Imperial Senate, she managed to captivate her audience. If she hadn’t been advocating for such foolish things, Vader might have considered himself proud.

He watches speech after speech until long after the time that he ordinarily would have retired to his meditation chamber for the night.

He tries to replace the sound of the princess’s screams with the sound of her voice, measured and steady, sharp and passionate. Tries to replace the image of her writhing in pain with one of her folding her hands delicately in front of her in speech.

He doesn’t quite succeed, and the memories haunt him more than he’d care to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep writing Vader as slightly more squishy than I mean to. he's just so! miserable! all! the! time!
> 
> also, a note on Yoda--I feel like he's slightly more chill here because he knows he still has a couple of years left in him, whereas in the OT, he's really crunched for time while trying to train Luke.


	33. stormchaser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: discussions of slavery (for the most part non-graphic; for more specific warnings and small spoilers, scroll to end note.)

One morning otherwise indistinct from the others, Leia wakes to the sound of the crackle of the comm.

“Wake up!”

When Luke doesn’t stir, Leia whacks him on the arm before hastily flipping the comm on.

“We can probably only use these once,” she says before Aunt Beru can speak.

The average person—like Aunt Beru and Luke were just a year and a half ago—doesn’t know just how thoroughly the Empire has taken control of the galaxy’s communication systems. She’d elected to send Artoo with the message to General Kenobi in order to circumvent that all those months ago.

“Of course.”

At the sound of Aunt Beru’s voice, Luke finally rolls over, blinking sleep out of his eyes as he sits up.

“We think we’ve found him.”

Leia’s stomach lurches. She hasn’t gone more than a few hours without thinking of Han these last few weeks, especially with the dreams.

“The droid is with the ship. He’ll explain more. Hurry.”

And with that, the comm switches off. Leia shakes her head. Maybe Aunt Beru would have been halfway decent at undercover work after all.

“She’s got to mean the Falcon,” Luke says, folding up his blanket. “It’s a miracle junkers haven’t walked off with it yet.”

“The Falcon’s not junk!” Leia protests quickly—too quickly, if Luke’s raised eyebrows are any indication.

Her ears turn pink.

“We’re lucky it’s still there,” she amends.

Luke stuffs his folded blanket in his bag and straightens up as much as the tiny tent will allow.

“Come on. If I know Aunt Beru, we’re gonna have to move fast. She hates the Hutts.”

Having had Aunt Beru’s anger directed at her before, Leia finds that she agrees. It takes less than a minute for her to gather her belongings. Hopefully, when they get to Tatooine, they’ll be able to get new clothes. Everything she has on her smells like the swamp.

By the time she makes it outside, Luke is already deep in conversion with the general, seated cross-legged in front of him like it’s just another meditation session.

“Complete, your training is not. Begun, young Organa’s training has not.”

Leia opens her mouth to protest that she neither needs nor wants Jedi training, but Luke beats her to it.

“Our friend is in danger,” Luke says.

General Yoda sighs. “In danger, he was, when you arrived, hmm?”

This time, Leia beats Luke to the punch.

“It’s worse now,” she insists. “If we don’t get to him—”

“Know this, you do?”

The blush from before reaches her cheeks. Leia silently prays that whatever species he is, the general can’t see the way the pink is slowly becoming red.

“I’ve been dreaming about him.”

The dreams have been indistinct and unhelpful. She can't see where he is or who he’s with, but she can see the way the muscles in his neck are straining as he tries not to cry out. She can see what looks like burn marks on his shoulders. She can see that, wherever he is, he’s close to breaking.

Something indecipherable crosses over General Yoda’s features.

“Pass in time, dreams do.”

“Not these ones.”

She crosses her arms, looking to Luke for support. He’s already getting to his feet.

“We have to go. But we’ll come back.”

Leia thinks to herself that she’ll never return to this stupid planet, but she knows better than to contradict Luke out loud. They can have that argument once safely back on the Falcon.

“Determined, you are.”

They both nod. General Yoda leans heavily on his cane as he leads the way over to the still-sunken ship. The general has never acted as if they’re marooned on Dagobah, even if Leia can’t see how he could possibly help them with the ship. Maybe his is hidden somewhere nearby, and he’ll just hand it off to them.

He pauses, as if waiting for one of them to object. When neither of them do, he closes his eyes and stretches out with one old, gnarled hand.

Leeia has seen holos of the Jedi in the Clone Wars. She’s watched them jump many times their own height, fend off blaster bolts as easily as breathing and coordinate perfectly paired attacks without exchanging a single word.

None of those holos could have possibly prepared her for seeing the real thing.

Leia has to stifle a gasp as the ship tilts, groans, and then begins to rise out of the mud. The wonder on Luke’s face is reflected in hers. Would he be able to learn a feat like that? Would she?

For the first time, Leia really grasps what this power could do for the Alliance.

General Yoda fixes them with a particularly hard stare.

“Seductive, the Dark Side is. Wary, you must be.”

Luke nods, even as Leia bristles. Through the Empire, the Dark has taken everything from her. What could possibly call her to it.

“We’ll complete our training. I swear.”

Leia boards the ship without making any such promises.

* * *

The family’s name is Stormcatcher, and as luck would have it, they’ve been surveying Jabba’s operations for several years. Even after hearing about their numbers—fairly impressive for such a small operation—Beru still has doubts about the plan.

Still. It’s the best one they’ve got.

“I know you don’t like them. But I’m wearing them too, see?”

Beru shakes the cuffs pinning her arms behind her back to emphasize her point. Chewie makes another grumpy noise, but he allows Tobias Stormcatcher to cuff him anyway.

“Thank you again,” Beru says to Tia, who is observing them with her mouth pressed into a grim line.

“I still think you’re crazy,” their son says matter-of-factly.

“Anders!” Tia admonishes, but Beru shakes her head.

“I think that’s fair to say.”

She’s fairly certain that there is no one in the history of Tatooine—or, at least, no one with a name like Whitesun in the history of Tatooine—that has planned a stunt quite like this.

“You ready for this?” Tia asks.

Beru nods, trying not to tense. Tia waits a heartbeat for her to change her mind before plunging the pronged tip of a scanner into her shoulder. No one would believe that she was an escapee without the chip wound to prove it.

“I’ve done that a hundred times,” Beru pants once the work is done. “Didn’t realize how much it hurt.”

Chewie very nearly hauls off and whacks Tia in the head when she gives him the same treatment, but Tobias jumps up just in time.

“You’re a baby,” Beru tells him, and the Wookiee grunts unhappily.

They bid farewell to Tobias and Anders outside of the small house. Beru rather wishes that she could say the same to Threepio, but the droid is already seated in the passenger side of the speeder that Tia bundles Beru and Chewie into.

“Dear oh dear,” Threepio worries. “I don’t like this much, Mistress Beru.”

“It’s Beru,” she corrects.

After that, she allows herself to fall into character. It’s not overly difficult. Beru knows the look of a recaptured slave all too well.

The trip out to Jabba’s palace is silent. Beru spends some time staring at her cuffs to give her wrists a raw look. Her shoulder aches from the scanner. She tries not to think of how much more it will ache with a chip in it.

Is this what it had been like for her parents that last night in the old homestead? Had their wrists been bloody, their voices hoarse? When had they realized that they would never see her again?

Beru thinks of Luke, then shoves the thought out of her head. He and Leia are coming for them all. She will see him again. She is not still here but gone, and she never will be.

“Nearly there,” Tia says. “Last chance to reconsider.”

Chewie says something that Beru interprets as a serious reconsideration over the sound of Threepio protesting as well, but she shakes her head.

“My nephew is clever. He knows how the Hutts operate. If anybody can get us out once we’re in, it’s him.”

Tia looks doubtful, but she doesn’t slow the speeder as the palace comes into view. Beru’s stomach twists at the sight of it. She’s heard the stories, but she’s never actually been here in person. You’d have to be crazy to visit without getting dragged there.

“Well,” Tia says at last. “Good luck.”

And with that, she leads the way inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> from the tw at the top: Beru and Chewie are posing as escaped slaves to gain access to Jabba's palace. there is brief discussion of the chips and of Beru's parents, who were slaves.
> 
> Leia: I'm dreaming about a loved one who is in danger!
> 
> Yoda; you've got to be kidding me. there are two of them.
> 
> friendly reminder that Leia is arguably MORE of an Anakin 2.0 than Luke is :D


	34. desert blood

Han Solo has never met a scrape he couldn’t get himself out of. But he’s definitely having some difficulty with this one.

It reminds him a little of growing up on Corellia, actually. If you keep your head down and your mouth shut, it’s easy enough to get by. Unfortunately, he’s never been good at doing either.

When he drags his eyes open after the latest whalloping for a smart comment that he couldn’t stand to leave locked up inside, Han thinks he’s hallucinating.

“Hold this, will you?”

Beru Whitesun Lars leans over him, holding out a piece of cloth. Han stares dumbly at it for a moment before turning his attention back to her.

“What?”

Mrs. Lars sighs. “Give me your hand.”

Han hands her his left. She has the audacity to roll her eyes.

“Your right hand, Solo. They didn’t hit you that hard over the head.”

Han wants to object that his head hurts plenty, thank you very much, but the brain cells that normally would have been engaged in witty-retorting are busy trying to work out what the hell she’s doing here.

Mrs. Lars takes his hand in hers and slowly begins to bind his middle and ring fingers together. Ah, right. Jabba’s goons hadn’t been overly thrilled with his middle finger’s talents.

Mrs. Lars ties off the makeshift splint with a practiced twist of her wrist.

“There. Good as new.”

There are exactly zero parts of him that are as good as new since his re-arrival on Tatooine, but Han still can’t get the snark out.

“You’re here.”

“Well-spotted.” Mrs. Lars clears her throat. “It’s partially my fault you’re here, after all.”

Damn right it is. He could have avoided this stupid rock for the rest of his life. But he can’t summon much anger. Not when he knows what a name like Whitesun means. What a name like Skywalker means.

Han’s stomach lurches as his brain finally processes the fact that Mrs. Lars is here on Tatooine instead of dead on an Imperial Star Destroyer. Maybe that’s equally bad. He’s certainly wished that he were dead on that Star Destroyer a few times since getting here.

“Where’s everybody else?”

His stomach lurches again, this time more to do with trying to sit up while his brain does cartwheels in his skull than with worry. Though there’s certainly plenty of that, too.

“Threepio and Chewie are here, too. And Luke and Leia are on the way with Artoo. ”

This time, when his stomach twists, it has absolutely nothing to do with jealousy. Absolutely not. That would be utterly ridiculous.

“Chewie’s here?”

Mrs. Lars makes a face. “I haven’t seen him in a while, but yeah.”

Han shakes his head, thinking of Vader’s obsession with the kid. Handing Luke’s friends off to Jabba would be an excellent way to control him. Vader could’ve told Jabba not to hurt them too bad unless asked, and Luke wouldn’t let anything happen to them if he could help it. It’s any desert-dweller’s worst nightmare.

Once again, Han’s brain stutters as he tries to keep up.

“Wait. What do you mean they’re coming? Aren’t they with—” he breaks off to imitate Vader’s breathing— “Darth Wheezy?”

“We got away.”

And here he’d thought that they’d gotten the short end of the stick when Fett had dragged him off of the shuttle. He’d assumed—apparently wrongfully—that escaping from a Hutt would be easier than pulling off the equivalent of their Death Star escape for a second time. He probably shouldn’t have underestimated Luke and Leia’s supernatural ability to get out of tight spots.

“Then what’re you doing here?”

Mrs. Lars smacks his less-injured arm.

“You, nerfherder.” Then, her eyes gentle. “Can you walk?”

They didn’t do anything to his legs. Han rolls his eyes as he gets to his feet, only to have a wave of nausea nearly bowl him over. 

“Come here,” Mrs. Lars says in a tone that somehow sounds like affection and ‘you idiot’ at the same time.

She slings his arm over her shoulders.

“I’ve got a bit to catch you up on so we can get out of here.”

* * *

The last time Leia had been on Tatooine had been short. Noteworthy, certainly, but short all the same. Now that she knows that she has the same desert blood as Luke and Aunt Beru, she’ll have to come back some day once the fight is over to process it properly.

(And, she supposes, Naboo as well. There’s a small thrill in her chest every time that Leia remembers that Padmé Amidala is her biological mother.)

“What was it like?” she asks when the navicomputer informs them that they’re about thirty minutes from entering Tatooine space.

Luke, like he always does, somehow knows exactly what she means.

“Hot,” he says with a shrug. “But cold, too. I think people don’t realize how cold the desert can get.”

He’s right. Intellectually, Leia knows that the desert gets cold at night, but she’s never considered it as applied to Luke.

“I’ve never felt that dry,” Leia says with a grimace.

Alderaan had its warm seasons, but there’d always been a cool breeze from the oceans and mountain lakes, and there’d been a heavy mist almost every morning.

Leia shoves the lump in her throat aside as Luke continues speaking.

“It wasn’t all that bad, really. But all I ever wanted was to get away. I wanted to see every planet when I was a kid.”

Ironic. Leia had been content with Alderaan alone, but she doesn’t even have that, now.

“My uncle was—well, he was our father’s stepbrother. Only met him once, when he carried our dead grandmother home after she got kidnapped by some Sand People.”

Leia wonders what, exactly, happened to their grandmother. If she’d been killed by Sand People, or—

“But Uncle Owen didn’t want me to end up like him. Father. He and Grandmother were slaves when he was a child, and he never came back for her when he was free. I don’t think Uncle Owen ever forgave him for that.”

Leia tries to imagine leaving Breha in slavery while she walked free and finds that she can’t. How had no one ever been able to see the seeds of Vader in Anakin Skywalker until it was far too late?

“So he tried to keep me on-world, looking after the farm. We fought about it a lot.” He looks down. “Sometimes I wish I’d spent more time listening. He had a lot of good advice.”

Leia smiles. “I fought with my mother constantly. She wanted me to stay home, learn how to run Alderaan. But I wanted to run for Senate to help the rebellion.”

Luke laughs. “Makes my problems feel a little bit silly.”

She shakes her head. “They were the same problems.”

If Fate, the Force, whatever pulls the galaxy’s strings, had decided to switch the twins, Leia suspects that she would have spent just as much time staring at the horizon as her brother had.

“Aunt Beru hates Jabba,” Luke says after a few beats.

“You knew him?’

Luke shakes his head. “Not really. The farm was in his territory, so we paid him a tax, but that was about it. But he was the one to take her parents.”

Suddenly, Leia is sitting on the ground in the Falcon’s fresher with the sour smell of vomit in the air and Aunt Beru’s voice soft and soothing in her ear. She shakes her head to clear the memory away.

“Well, then. We’re doing this for her, too. And Grandmother.”

“Shmi,” Luke supplies.

“Shmi,” Leia repeats.

Somehow, the name feels right on her tongue. Leia feels a bit more ready to face the desert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all, 10k hits??? you're too kind. this story has been so much fun to write, and we still have a ways to go.
> 
> Leia is, naturally, much more suspicious of Anakin pre-Vader than Luke is. not that I can blame her, but she's not being particularly fair here.


	35. a familiar defiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning again for discussions of slavery. Scroll to the end note for more information.

If anybody had asked C-3PO (and they hadn’t, thank you very much), he would have told them that this was a horrible idea.

Of course, no one ever asked for Threepio’s opinion before they involved him in a crazy scheme, so he wasn’t sure why he was surprised.

This one in particular worries him. Threepio isn’t sure why, but he knows with circuit-deep certainty that you do not tangle with Hutts on Tatooine. Maybe it’s the fact that Huttese has forty-four words for ‘devour’ but only one for ‘polite’ that concerns him so.

Either way, Jabba is the first master he’s had in his memory to actually use him as a protocol droid, so Threepio supposes it’s not all bad. He’s even had to dust off his memory banks on a few languages he’s never actually accessed. Droids don’t have fun, no matter what Artoo has to say on the subject, but if he could, Threepio would be having fun.

Or, at least, he would be when Chewbacca, Captain Solo, and Mistress—and Beru—aren’t in sight. When they are, his circuits tie themselves into little knots of anxiety. The three of them aren’t very good at following orders. Not like droids at all. (Or, well, most droids. Artoo is something of an exception there).

Threepio hopes they won’t assume that he’s disobedient as well. He doesn’t want to find out what happens to droids who can’t follow orders.

“Hush, now.”

A young girl who had been serving drinks swallows back tears as she sweeps up shards of the glass that she’d dropped. Not-Mistress Beru kneels beside her and scoops up the littler pieces so she won’t cut herself. 

“We all drop things sometimes,” Beru says quietly. “And it’s okay when we do.”

Threepio has seen what happens when the servers drop drinks, and he wouldn’t necessarily refer to it as okay. But then, he’s never understood the point of a comforting lie.

By the time that Beru stands up again, her fingers are bloody. She idly wipes them on her tunic.

“Whitesun.”

Threepio jumps at the sound of Beru’s name in Huttese. It’s harsh and sharp and doesn’t remind Threepio much of the sun at all.

“Beru,” Threepio begins delicately.

“I know what he said, Threepio. Thank you.”

It’s unsettling to hear her speak the language as well. It’s more unsettling to watch her step up in front of Jabba’s dais, chin slightly raised and her eyes locked on his.

“A familiar name,” Jabba replies.

Beru says nothing. Threepio thinks that there’s a question buried in there—organics never simply say what they mean—but if there is, Beru doesn’t acknowledge it.

Jabba was apparently expecting an answer, because his eyes narrow in a displeased way that Threepio has become all-too familiar with over the last week. He tenses—Beru being fed to Jabba’s favorite pet is hardly part of the plan that Threepio is clinging so desperately to—but the trapdoor beneath her feet doesn’t move.

“A familiar defiance.” 

Threepio has never been particularly good at reading emotion on humans, but he’s pretty sure the series of them parading across Beru’s face move far too quickly for even another organic to parse.

“There are many of us,” Beru says.

For reasons that Threepio has never been able to understand, his programming includes quite a bit of information about slavery on Tatooine. He knows that Whitesun is one of only a handful of family names—Skywalker, Darklighter, Stormchaser, and the like. Jabba could have been talking about any number of people.

“I know you, Beru.”

She stiffens noticeably, one of her hands clenching into a fist at her side before she forces it to relax.

“Many years ago, there was a girl with your name. I wanted her.”

Threepio can’t technically shudder. But if he could, those words would have made a shiver run all the way down his metallic spine.

“I know this story already.” Beru’s voice is shaky. “You tried to take what you wanted. But you failed.”

“Until now.”

Her mouth twits, and for a moment, Threepio thinks all is lost. But Beru bites back whatever words were gathering in her mouth and dips her head in acceptance instead.

“Until now,” she agrees, and Threepio hopes desperately that he’s the only one that can hear the hint of defiance still in her voice.

* * *

Leia is many things, but a patient woman is not one of them. In most things, Luke is every bit as eager as she is, but he seems different on this mission. Leia can’t decide if it’s the effect of General Yoda’s teaching or the knowledge of what sort of mission they’re on.

She knows that the Jedi had detested slavery, though there had been little for them to do about it while the Republic failed to act. But for Luke, this is personal, and it goes far beyond rescuing Han Solo.

It does for Leia too, she supposes. Shmi Skywalker had lived and died both chained and free under those twin suns. 

When this is over and they’ve restored the Republic, the very first thing Leia will do is tear down the Hutts in her name.

“Here. This should fit.”

Luke throws a bundle of fabric at her. Leia sighs. Like most things that aren’t made for her specifically, the black tunic set will probably be too long. Hopefully, she won’t trip on it.

“Why black?” she asks.

Luke finishes his business—snapping at the trader in quick Huttese that Leia’s limited lessons don’t help her with—before turning back.

“Hmm?”

“Isn’t this going to be hot?”

Luke nods, sliding the last of their credits across the counter.

“It’s a status symbol,” he explains, gathering his own clothes into his arms. “If you’re working out in the sun all day, a getup like this will kill you.”

Leia remembers the farmboy outfit well. Loose, light, breathable. It’s the exact opposite of what she’s holding now.

“If we want him to take us seriously—”

“We dress the part,” Leia finishes. “Got it.”

Luke leads the way back into the scalding sunlight. Leia has to hold her hand over her eyes for a few moments to adjust, but Luke plows on. Around them, the houses grow smaller, squatter. Leia hadn’t thought that Tatooine could possibly look more impoverished. Luke walks with more confidence the further they get into what Leia is beginning to suspect is the slave quarter.

“There.”

Luke points out a marking so small and pale that Leia likely would have missed it. A white sun. Whitesun. Oh.

“Stormchaser, right?” Luke asks when a woman opens the door. “Luke and Leia Skywalker.”

It doesn’t sound right, and Leia rankles at using  _ his  _ name, but it’s the name that will buy them legitimacy with the Stormchasers, so it’s the name they use.

“Your aunt is insane,” she says, letting them in the door.

Luke smiles. “Yeah, sometimes.”

He dusts himself off in the entryway, so Leia follows suit. It’s impossible to get all of the sand off; Leia hates it. She’s going to take the galaxy’s longest sonic once they’re back on the Falcon, even if it isn’t quite as clean as she’d like.

A series of beeps greets them when they follow the woman into the tiny space that serves as a living room. Artoo trundles out, moving from side to side excitedly.

“Good to see you, too,” Luke says with a grin, crouching down to run an affectionate hand over the droid’s dome. “You didn’t have too much fun without us, did you?”

Leia can’t speak binary, but even she’s fairly certain that if Artoo could speak Basic, he would be swearing profusely.

“Thanks for looking after him for us,” Luke says warmly. “He looks good as new.”

The young boy who’d entered the room after Artoo smiles. “I gave him a good wash. He was complaining about being grimy.”

The woman invites them to sit with a flick of wrist. Luke and Leia cram into a chair that’s slightly too small for two people.

“The droid wouldn’t tell us the full plan until you arrived,” she says.

“He’s like that,” Leia says. “Artoo, if you would.”

At least this feeling—planning a scheme that’s probably doomed to fail—is familiar. Leia lets herself settle into the comfort of something she knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Beru and Jabba speak briefly about the circumstances that led to her parents' enslavement, which are by necessity icky.
> 
> Leia hates sand. it's gritty, and it gets everywhere, and you know what? she's valid.


	36. walk free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, TW for discussions of slavery. see end note for more info.

Beru can’t get the Hutt’s words out of her head. All those years ago, her parents hadn’t simply been unlucky. They’d been targeted—targeted because of her. Every time she reaches that thought, she wants to throw up.

(Once, she actually does, with a very confused Han Solo awkwardly patting her shoulder.)

Logically, she knows that none of what had happened to her family had been her fault. But there’s a tiny part of her brain that tells her that if she’d never been born, her parents would have been better off.

Luckily, there’s quite a lot to occupy her thoughts. Besides the daily workload, she has to help set the trap. Han follows behind her, doubtful but—for once—silent.

One morning, the chatter in the throne room changes. Beru keeps her ears perked as she slowly clears the table. It’s time. She lingers longer in the room than she ever has—normally, she avoids it with all her might.

The lackeys, always jockeying for favor, speak in low voices about a Jedi knight. They never bother stopping when Beru steps up to clear their dishes away, and it takes all of a year playing sabacc with Han Solo to keep the smile off her face.

Finally, she hears enough of a commotion to look towards the entrance.

Luke reminds her uncomfortably of his father, dressed in a black cloak that obscures his features from view. Beru sucks in a breath, then banishes the thought from her mind. Anakin Skywalker, after all, had never returned to Tatooine to free the slaves.

Beside Luke, Leia raises her chin, not quite as hidden away in the folds of her cloak. Beru finds it very easy to picture what Princess Leia must have looked like in Alderaan’s throne room.

Jabba laughs low in his throat as they make their entrance, but he doesn’t make a move for his guards to stop them.

His mistake.

Beru glances around the room, keeping an eye on the guards. For the most part, they’re more fascinated by the dancers than they are by the scene unfolding in front of them. Beru smiles.

“I received your message,” Jabba says. 

Threepio translates, and Leia considers the Hutt, her eyes sharp and dangerous.

“And yet you did not heed it,” she says.

Another laugh. “There are no more Jedi.”

This time, Luke doesn’t wait for Threepio to translate before reacting, moving his hand to reveal the lightsaber clipped to his belt. Jabba’s eyes track the movement, but he doesn’t show any sign of fear.

“Will you use that saber on me, boy? I have known Jedi. You are nothing of the sort.”

The boy that Beru had raised would have bristled at that, would have protested. But Luke merely folds his arms, allowing the cloak to obscure his lightsaber once more. It is Leia that steps forward.

“If you’ve truly known Jedi, then surely you know to be cautious.”

There’s a casual danger to her voice that makes a shiver run down Beru’s spine. It’s easy to see how Leia had stood up to Vader on the Death Star, how she’d done it again when they’d been captured on the Star Destroyer. 

Her hand strays to the blaster on her hip. Beru tenses, but Leia pulls it away at the last moment.

“You will free your slaves,” Luke says, in Basic.

He makes the same motion that Ben Kenobi had once upon a time, but Jabba merely laughs once again.

“Mind tricks do not affect a Hutt, foolish child.”

Luke smiles. “Not a mind trick. Just a suggestion.”

“And why,” asks Jabba, “should I listen?”

“Because,” says Luke, slipping into Huttese as naturally as breathing, “there are far more of them than there are of you.”

Jabba’s enormous, jaundiced eyes widen as he recognizes the lilt to Luke’s voice, the accent that marks him just as clearly as his last name. For the first time, he must sense danger.

“A runaway,” he snarls in Huttese.

“No,” Luke says mildly. “A chainbreaker.”

Beru allows herself a singular moment to pray that the plan will work before throwing herself into action.

* * *

It’s not like Han has much of a choice in the matter, seeing as he’s been here for over a month and hasn’t come up with anything better, but he doesn't really approve of this scheme.

Sure, it’s not the riskiest thing he’s ever done, but it is his first escape with a literal bomb under his skin, which makes a hell of a difference in Han’s book. Still, he follows dutifully as Mrs. Lars sets the trap.

She speaks in hushed tones as she washes dishes, as she binds wounds, as she tucks the parentless children into bed. She tells the others that an opportunity for freedom is on the way. She says that the very last of the Jedi are coming for them.

(Han doesn't miss the plural, and he silently wonders how, exactly, Luke has managed to drag ever-practical Leia into his religious mumbo-jumbo.)

It isn’t until Luke and Leia walk in the front door that the feeling that always tells Han when he’s about to get out of some deep banthashit kicks in.

Leia catches his eye for the barest of moments, but it’s enough to make Han just a little bit weak at the knees. Yeah, okay, maybe more than a little bit, but he’s never gonna admit that out loud.

For a moment, when Luke says ‘chainbreaker,’ Han thinks that he, Chewbacca, Mrs. Lars and the droids are going to be the only ones to move. Then, the room breaks into chaos. Han lets his instincts drive him. He slams his elbow back into the gut of the bounty hunter sitting at the table he’d been serving. The Twi’lek gasps in surprise and pain, and Han snatches the handle of the blaster in her belt. She twists, trying to throw him off, but Han leaps out of reach, pulling the blaster with him.

He shoots her right where he’d elbowed her and allows himself a brief moment of satisfaction before focusing on the battle raging around him. 

The guards have been taken completely by surprise. Han grins as he watches one of the women wallop one over the head with her serving tray.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Leia. Han smiles, even as he ducks a blaster bolt.

“This was your idea, sweetheart, not mine.”

They fall in back-to-back like they’ve been doing it for years.

“Stop getting yourself kidnapped by bounty hunters, then,” she snipes back. “You’ll notice that we escaped just fine. You’re the weak link.”

Han grabs her by the shoulder so he can get a shot off, and she fires underneath his arm without a moment’s pause.

“I think I’m in love with you,” Han’s mouth says before his brain manages to shut it.

“I know,” Leia replies. “To your left.”

Han spends the next few minutes trying to figure out what the hell kind of response that was as he helps the others gather weapons. For all that the guards are armed, they’re woefully outnumbered. Han gets a grim sort of satisfaction from watching them fall one by one.

Finally, the chaos grinds to a halt. All of the guards have been subdued or killed. The freed stand, panting, some tending to the wounded, others watching the guards.

Jabba lifts his hands.

“You may walk free,” Threepio translates, the little twerp.

Han can’t conceal a smile.

“Yes,” says Beru, “we can. Get him.”

And Han doesn’t feel the least bit bad about it as the freed swarm Jabba as one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: in the first section, Beru again thinks about her parents' enslavement.  
> ...
> 
> you know, I did genuinely consider sticking Han in a golden bikini before deciding that I just couldn't do it. i loved writing this chapter and tying it into all of the previous discussion of Tatooine! I love Leia, but I couldn't give the pleasure of killing Jabba to her--or, at least, her alone, because I imagine she got in on some of the action at the end :D


	37. anakin skywalker

Han’s shoulder hurts like hell, but at least there’s not a chance of him imploding on the spot. Or would it be exploding? Either way, he’s better off than he was before.

“That looks like it hurts.”

Leia drops on to the ground cross-legged across from him.

“Not too bad,” he says.

An awkward silence descends. Han clears his throat.

“So.”

“So,” Leia replies, and Han is pretty sure that there’s a teasing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Just for that, he changes the subject. A little kind of revenge.

“You’re calling yourself a Jedi now, huh?”

She shrugs. “Look.”

Han stares as she reaches out a hand. All of the sand particles on the ground beneath it quiver and then begin to float. Okay. Maybe not mumbo-jumbo after all.

“Did you mean it?” Leia asks suddenly.

The bottom drops out of Han’s stomach. He does his best to keep it off of his face.

“I mean—you don’t have to do anything with it. We can just—it didn't happen.”

Leia rolls her eyes. Then, her face becomes more serious.

“I just want to know if you really meant it, Han.”

She’s not gonna let him get away with this, is she? Han briefly considers grabbing Chewie and bouncing, but then he realizes that he doesn’t know where the Falcon is. Damn.

“Yeah.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “I did. Mean it. Yeah.”

He’s going to vaporize on the spot. Is it hot in here? It’s always hot on Tatooine, but is it unusually hot today?

Leia hunches in on herself in a way that Han has never seen. Even when she was grieving Alderaan, she’d done it with her shoulders back and chin tipped up.

“I wasn’t Bail and Breha Organa’s biological child,” she says quietly.

It’s not completely shocking—Han hadn’t exactly been a news junkie before he got wrapped up in some real front-page material, but he’d known about the Organas. Do-gooders to their cores. Of course they would adopt an orphan.

Especially, Han is now realizing, a Jedi orphan. There hadn’t been a sentient in the galaxy that hadn’t seen the holos of the Coruscant temple’s destruction. Han had been a kid then, had already seen some shit that a kid his age had no business seeing, but even he’d felt a little cold looking at it. Had Leia somehow survived that?

“Okay?”

Leia glances over at Luke, who’s talking quietly to a little girl while he binds up the wound he’d made with that chip-detector thing of his.

“I’m—”

She clears her throat, worries at the little sand particles with her fingers. Han lets an instinct he hadn’t known he possessed take over. He clasps Leia’s hands in his own.

“Sweetheart, after the year I’ve had, nothing could possibly surprise me.”

Leia looks doubtful, but it’s true. A bit over a year ago, he and Chewie were cruising around the galaxy working odd jobs for Tatooine crime lords. Now, he’s following some kid on an idealistic religious quest and he’s in love with a revolutionary. Han’s definition of strange no longer means anything.

“My father was a Jedi.”

Han tries to imagine Ben Kenobi reproducing, then quickly slams that door shut. There are some things that you just don’t need to think about.

“Okay,” Han says again.

It’s not any weirder than Leia being able to levitate sand with her mind, after all.

“Except he—he went bad.”

Han blinks. He didn’t know Jedi could go evil. Sure, the Empire liked to say they were evil and always had been, but everybody from Han’s neck of the woods knows that ninety-five percent of the Empire’s stories are pure kark.

“So what?” Han says after a moment. “It’s not like you’d ever do that. All you’re gonna use that hand-wavey stuff for is smashing stormtroopers’ heads together.”

Great. Now he’s imagining Leia taking down stormtroopers with the Force and it’s a bit more of a turn-on than he’d care to admit.

“It’s Vader.”

Han’s immediate thought—not that he’s proud of it, mind—is how difficult it would be to strip out of all that armor. His second—well. Han would rather think about Ben Kenboi, thanks.

He’s brought back to the present by Leia’s eyes boring into his. Oh, right.

“Who cares?”

Whatever Leia was expecting to hear, it clearly wasn’t that. She stares at him, mouth partially open.

“So you have a terrible biological father,” Han says with a shrug. “Big deal. So do I.”

He’s not expecting her to tackle him into a hug, so Han lands hard on his back, very nearly cracking his head off of the sandy floor. They both laugh, though Han’s comes out more like a wheeze.

“I think I love you, too,” she says with a smile she very rarely bestows in his direction.

“Good,” he says. “Cause otherwise that would have been pretty embarrassing.”

* * *

Beru feels—well, giddy. There’s no other word for the lightness in her chest, for the way she feels like she could just float away. 

She watches the freed walk around, marveling at the feeling of being unfettered. Everyone ignores what had once been Jabba the Hutt’s body in the corner, except for the occasional child growing bold enough to spit on it.

“Ready?”

Luke crouches down beside her, detector in hand.

“The rest?”

“All free. Now, give me your arm.”

It’s the most common location for a chip, so Luke starts his scan there. He finds it lodged right beneath her ribcage. Beru raises the hem of her shirt.

“Sorry,” Luke says before jabbing her sharply.

Beru stifles a yelp and lets the device do its work. It has a scanner that detects the bomb, a tool to use to extract it from the body, and a means of deactivating the bomb on the other side. Even though Beru has seen it work a hundred times, she can’t help but tense. The moment the bomb comes free, all the air in her body exits with a woosh.

“I can’t believe that was inside of you,” Luke mutters darkly.

He flips the detector and sets to work deactivating the bomb.

Beru considers him for a moment.

“Owen and I owned the first one of those.”

Luke stares. “What? You invented them?”

Beru shakes her head. “Your uncle was handy, but not quite like that.”

The pieces slowly slide together in Luke’s head. 

“Did—” He clears his throat, then tries again. “Did he make the first one?”

Beru nods. She’s been debating with herself these last few hours, but Luke deserves to know. She and Owen had always kept it quiet because that sort of notoriety wasn’t helpful for freeing slaves, but it’s not like Luke is going to tell his friends at school.

“He came back with your grandmother in his arms, and then he shut himself in her workshop for a few hours. We didn’t disturb him. We thought he wanted to be alone in her space for a while. But really, he was drafting a blueprint.”

Luke turns the device over in his hands.

“Owen and I found it the next morning once he and your mother were gone. Cliegg thought it was nonsense, of course. And you thought your uncle was practical to a fault.”

Beru shakes her head at the memory. There are days that she misses Shmi and Cliegg just as acutely as her own parents. 

“I wanted so desperately for it to work, though. So Owen indulged me. It took ages for us to scrape together the parts.” She laughs. “Actually, it was what he used to propose.”

Beru had had her doubts about marrying a man whose family had never known chains, but they’d all evaporated when he’d held out the finished product.

“Of course there was a pretty good chance it wouldn’t work. But the next time we sheltered a runaway, we gave them a choice, and none of us blew up.” Beru closes her eyes, remembering the way Owen’s hands had been trembling too much to do the work, the way he’d handed the detector over to her. “And after that, we passed the design around. I suppose the Stormchasers got their hands on it.”

Luke stares down at the detectors. “The more I learn about him, the less sense it all makes.”

Beru’s throat tightens in sympathy. “I know.” Then, she forces a smile. “But it’s not the best thing he ever made.” 

Luke rolls his eyes, but he still has to fight to keep the small smile off his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh Han. I've missed his POV.
> 
> we've probably got about a chapter more of wrapping this arc up, but I'm very excited for the next character cameo that's coming down the pike :D


	38. start anew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW - some discussion of what could be considered a suicide. please tread carefully and read the end note, if you'd like to know what this means.

Approximately half of the freed opt to stay on Tatooine. They have friends and family to free, for the most part, though some just don’t want to leave their home, however terrible, behind. The other half take Leia up on her offer to join the Rebellion. Whatever Mon Mothma was going to scold when they appeared after nearly two full months dies in her throat at the sight of a hundred new recruits.

The responsibility of integrating the newcomers into the Rebellion falls to Beru. They’re all capable workers—you have to be, to survive bondage on Tatooine—but there are still stumbling blocks. Some, desperate to avoid their old days of compliance, ignore any and all orders. Others follow so obediently that it worries her. Beru pulls each one aside and talks, and each problem solved makes her feel a little better.

Luke helps, too, drawn especially to the little ones that still understand Huttese better than they do Basic. He teaches them to read, speaking his lessons loud enough for their parents to overhear and understand too. 

Months pass before Beru can blink. The Rebellion grows bolder with the support of more and more planets like Naboo behind them. They still die in ridiculous numbers, and Beru still waits with bated breath every time Luke goes up in his X-Wing, but she no longer feels as if they’re fighting a losing battle. There’s a chance—albeit, a small one—that they’ll be able actually make a dent in the Empire.

One morning on Home One, Beru is on her way to the kitchens to help coordinate lunch when an old woman stops her in her tracks.

“Iyana, right?” Beru asks.

She’s made it a point to get to know all of the freed, but there are some, like Iyana, that she’s never spoken to.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ordinarily, Beru would push back against any sort of title, but something in Iyana’s eyes makes her pause.

“Why don’t we sit down in the mess?”

Beru leads the way; they’re between meals right now, so it shouldn’t be too crowded. Besides, in tight quarters like Home One, news travels fast, so there’s no such thing as a truly private conversation anyway.

Sure enough, aside from a handful of new pilot recruits messing around in one of the corners, the room is empty. Beru takes a seat at one of the tables and gestures for Iyana to join her.

“I debated about talking to you.”

The soft lilt to Iyana’s voice reminds Beru of Shmi.

“You can talk to me about anything,” Beru assures her.

Iyana reminds her of her own mother, too. She’s old beyond her years—older, though, than Beru had ever seen her mother—with weather-worn lines on her face and a warmness to her eyes.

“It’s about your parents.”

Beru’s breath catches in her throat as hope traitorously bubbles in her gut. They’d be old now, she knows that, but not impossibly old. And now that she’s taken Jabba down, what master could possibly be more difficult to topple?

“You knew them,” Beru deduces.

A nod. Iyana would be their age, maybe a little younger. Beru wants to ask another question, but her throat is too tight to force words out.

“They came to Jabba at the same time that I did,” Iyana says. “You could tell right away that they’d been free. They always looked you in the eye when they spoke, and they did everything they could to help the others.”

Beru still can’t speak, and now she can’t see for the tears blurring her vision. She blinks them back.

“They got in a lot of trouble,” Iyana says, shaking her head. “They always talked about escaping. Said they had a little girl they had to get back to.”

The tears fall, and Iyana doesn’t tell her not to waste water because they’re not on Tatooine anymore and none of the old rules apply.

“Your mother was convinced that she knew where her chip was,” Iyana continues, squeezing her eyes shut against the memory. “We all told her that it was too dangerous, but she thought it was worth the risk.”

Beru knows how this story must end, because they never got back to their little girl, but she can’t stop that hopeful feeling no matter how hard she tries.

“They went to the boiler room of the barge because they wanted it to mean something if—” She clears her throat. “—if it went wrong.”

Beru closes her eyes, too, but it only makes the mental image clearer, so she forces them open again.

“I was asleep when the explosion went off.”

Bile rises in Beru’s throat, and she forces it back down.

“I am telling you this, my dear,” Iyana says, “because of what happened next.”

Iyana clasps her hands in her lap and stares down at them.

“They took out the barge. We crashed. In the chaos, over fifty of us escaped with our remotes.”

Iyana finally meets Beru’s eyes.

“You finished the work your parents could not when you freed us, Beru Whitesun. Never forget that.”

Beru stands abruptly, very nearly breaking her kneecap on the tabletop in front of her.

“I—thank you.”

And before she makes a complete fool out of herself, she bolts.

* * *

Leia finds Aunt Beru by accident, but it doesn’t feel accidental. Leia is far less skeptical of the Force now than she was, even though she remains unconvinced that there is any force in the universe that can compel her to do something she doesn’t want to.

This, though. This, Leia wants to do.

“Are you all right?”

Aunt Beru is hunched over the toilet in the small refresher. Leia lowers herself to her knees beside her, hands gingerly outstretched, not quite touching her. Like calming a wounded animal.

“He wanted me,” Aunt Beru says.

Leia stares. Aunt Beru shakes her head before continuing.

“When I was a kid, Jabba wanted me, but my parents saved me. But they sacrificed themselves.”

Leia is all too aware of the parallels as she lays her hand on Aunt Beru’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t your fault. They made their choice to protect their daughter like any parent would. You’d have done it for Luke.”

It doesn’t help, Leia knows. Easing that kind of guilt isn’t a simple thing.

“They blew up,” Aunt Beru says faintly. “My mother wanted to get her chip out, but my father’s hands must not have been steady enough.”

Leia has the completely insane thought that their parents died the same way. From the look of Aunt Beru’s face, she’s thinking the same thing. There are tear tracks on her face. Leia reaches out and wipes them away.

“On the Death Star, it felt like it was all my fault,” Leia says.

Aunt Beru shakes her head, but Leia cuts her off before she can speak.

“You told me that it wasn’t. Sometimes, life is cruel. People are cruel. And there’s nothing I could have done. Nothing you could have done but survive and make it right. And you did that.”

The tears start again, but this time, Leia doesn’t wipe them away. On Alderaan, tears cleanse. Heal. Help you start anew.

“I’m Luke’s sister,” she says without thinking about it.

“You’re—” Aunt Beru stares, the pieces clicking into place. “Twins. There were two of you.”

Leia can map out precisely when she realizes what that means.

“Oh, Leia.”

The now-familiar nausea floods Leia’s gut at the reminder of the feeling of Vader’s—of her father’s—durasteel fingers digging into the flesh of her shoulder. Aunt Beru—really _Aunt_ Beru, Leia realizes with a start—pulls her into a hug.

“I’m very glad to have a niece like you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *TW - we learn what has happened to Beru's parents; they attempted to get Beru's mother's chip out, knowing that it could kill them, and it did.
> 
> and that's it for the Jabba arc and for Beru's subplot with her parents :D 
> 
> hopefully y'all liked learning what happened to them, even though it sucked :/


	39. a final revelation

“Pick up the pace!” 

Beru swears quietly to herself, despite the fact that it wastes some of the precious air that remains in her lungs.

“You try going faster when you’re twenty years older, Solo!” she snarls.

Still, she digs into a reserve of strength she didn’t know she had and presses forward anyway.

It had been meant to be a simple mission, but like most rebel missions, it turned out to be anything but. They’re on a planet that Beru doesn’t even remember the name of right now. It reminds her a little of Naboo—too pretty for its own good, with enough colors to mesmerize someone from a desert planet. They’d been meant to break one of their operatives out of jail before the Imps arrived, but their intel must have been faulty, because the operative had been dead in her cell long before they arrived, and there had been an entire detachment of stormtroopers waiting for them.

There hadn’t been anything to do but run like hell for the Falcon. So what else was new?

“I think we shook some of them off!” Luke yells at the precise moment that they round the corner straight into a wall of armor.

“Gee,” says Han as they come to a halt. “I wonder where they all went.”

Unless one of them learns to levitate very quickly—and Beru is pretty certain that that’s not a Jedi skill—they’re about to be blasted into oblivion. Probably better than getting captured a third time, though, so Beru can’t complain.

The stormtroopers seem every bit as surprised at having caught them as they are at having been caught. They aim their blasters, but no one fires. Beru takes the opportunity to look around for an escape route. They’re in a deserted square that looks as if it usually houses an open market. At least there won’t be any civilian losses, because it looks empty. The whole place is old and worn and reminds her a little bit of Mos Espa.

“Here goes nothing,” says Luke.

Beru is expecting him to draw Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber, but instead he throws out his hands.

“We don’t have time for magic tricks, kid!” Han yelps, but Luke ignores him.

He screws up his face, plants his feet, and exhales. Beru barely turns her attention away from her nephew fast enough to watch as the oldest, most crumbling wall teeters. Beru has half a second to process that he’s doing this with his  _ mind  _ before it comes crashing down directly on the squad of troopers ahead of them.

The moment the old stone hits the ground, Luke does, too. Han swears more violently than Beru had ever heard from him.

“Chewie!”

The Wookiee is already moving, scooping Luke up as easily as he would a child and cradling him to his chest. Then, all three of them take off into the chaos up ahead.

“I didn’t think he knew how to do that!” Beru wheezes out in between gasps for air.

“Lucky breeze!” Han insists.

If Beru hadn’t been running, she would have rolled her eyes. Instead, she puts all of her energy into keeping up as they rocket towards the Falcon. She grins in relief when it comes into sight up ahead, but the smile slides off of her face as she sees Leia waving her arms frantically on the entrance ramp.

“This ship is a bucket of bolts!” she spits at Han. Then, “Luke, is he—”

“Kid’s fine,” Han cuts in. “What did you do to the ship?”

Leia splutters. “What did  _ I  _ do to—”

“What’s wrong?” Beru yells before they can dissolve into full-on bickering.

The stormtroopers probably aren’t that far behind them, after all.

“The ramp won’t close!”

Han shakes his head. “We’ll land somewhere on-world and fix it.”

“They’re forming a blockade. If we don’t jump straight to hyperspace, we’re finished.”

“We’re not gonna have any cover,” Beru realizes as Han springs on board to try to fix the ramp.

“Not if I can help it.”

Leia snatches the lightsaber off of Luke’s hip before gesturing to Chewie to carry him on board.

“Get behind me.”

Beru eyes the lightsaber warily. “Do you know how to use that thing?”

Leia shrugs helplessly. “I’ve got a better shot than you do. Get behind me.”

She’s using the voice that Beru knows better than to argue with, so she ducks behind Leia with her blaster raised.

She’s not a moment too soon. Stormtroopers round the corner and raise their blasters. Leia takes a deep, grounding breath, not unlike the one that Luke just took, before igniting the saber.

* * *

Access to the holonet is still pretty hit or miss in the Outer Rim, but one of Anders Stormchaser’s friends has a portal. He comes sprinting home a full hour before his curfew, collapsing dramatically in the living room with a huff.

“What’s wrong?” Tobias demands.

“The siblings,” Anders pants. “The Skywalkers. They’re Jedi.”

That night, the entire chainbreaker network sits and watches grainy footage with wide eyes as Luke Skywalker moves a building with his mind and as Leia fends off blaster bolts with a lightsaber.

* * *

On Naboo, Queen Tia is enjoying a rare quiet evening with her handmaidens when one of her advisors slips in the door.

“Excuse me, miladay,” Sabé says. “We thought you would want to see this.”

Without further explanation, she hands over a datapad. A few of her handmaidens—they have no secrets between them—glance over her shoulder as she starts the recording.

There’s a blond boy—young man, really, probably a few years older than Tia herself—reaching out. Then, a wall collapses. Tia’s brow furrows, but then the video changes. Her breath catches in her throat as she watches Leia Organa move fluidly with a lightsaber.

“She’s—they’re—” 

Tia struggles, but she can’t get the rest of the words out. At least this confirms what she already knows in her heart to be true—she’s picked the right side of this war. After all, the people of Naboo owe Padmé Amidala’s Jedi protectors a debt.

* * *

In addition to making a mean stew, Jemma Dion is one of the Rebel Alliance’s best publicity strategists, and she’s never had a story land in her lap quite like this. It takes all of her patience not to run on the way to Mon Mothma’s office.

“Have you—”

“I’ve seen it,” Mothma says, gesturing for her to sit. “I suspect half the galaxy has by now.”

“Did you know?”

Mothma shakes her head. “I’d always wondered. Bail was close with them, so when he and Breha adopted her, I wondered—” She cuts herself off. “You’ll need to speak with her and Skywalker when they get back, but I want a campaign ready to go.”

* * *

As it turns out, half the galaxy does see the recording, including its leader.

“Lord Vader.”

Sidious folds his gnarled hands in his lap as he gazes at the projection of his apprentice. His traitorous apprentice, as it turns out. Sidious supposes he ought to be pleased that he has at long last managed to twist Anakin Skywalker’s blind, steadfast loyalty into hatred. It’s just rather inconvenient timing, considering what he’s just discovered.

“My master.”

Even behind the mask, Vader has always worn all of his emotions on his sleeve. It’s all too easy to pluck them up one by one and read them.  _ Fear _ , good. Nervousness, good. Pride...odd.

“It is rather strange, is it not, that Bail and Breha Organa’s daughter should be Force sensitive?”

Vader doesn’t so much as twitch, but Sideous can feel his unease ripple across the parsecs between them.

“Any child can be,” he hedges at last.

“And it is rather strange, is it not,” Sidious continues as if he hadn’t responded, “that she should have been adopted mere days after Skywalker’s wife somehow delivered a son?”

This time, Vader remains silent. Sidious can almost hear the gears in his head turning, as mechanical as the rest of him.

“And it is rather strange, is it not, that she bears the name Anakin Skywalker chose for his daughter?”

Sidious leans back in his throne, a satisfied smile on his face. Vader’s silence confirms he—he already knows.

“The daughter looks much like the mother, don’t you think?”

And then, with a click, he ends the call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sideous is thinking about all the times he saw Leia in the Senate and kicking himself :D
> 
> no more secrets! I'm so excited that everyone knows everything now! (I'm sure Sideous hates that he was somehow the last to find out)


	40. sabacc face

They decide not to head back to the fleet, just in case they’re being tracked. Han jumps at random, barely finishing his calculations before returning them to hyperspace again. Beru spends most of this time hunched over the toilet in the Falcon’s small fresher. She’s gotten more used to space travel in the last nearly two years, but there’s still only so much that her stomach can take.

When she finally staggers back to the cockpit, it’s to find Han and Leia arguing over Luke’s head. Beru has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing at the look of panic on his face.

“You want us to just place all our bets on some spacer?” Leia snaps.

“I’m a spacer,” Han replies, “and I like to think that I’m reasonably trustworthy.”

Leia opens her mouth, probably to list all of the ways that Han is decidedly untrustworthy, so Beru cuts in.

“What’s going on?”

Luke seizes the opportunity to escape. “We don’t have the fuel to make it back to the fleet, and Han has an old friend—”

“Acquaintance, at best,” Leia says sourly.

“Han has an old acquaintance in a nearby system that might be able to help out.”

“The Falcon was his ship,” Leia adds. 

Beru pauses. “Wait. What do you mean,  _ was _ .”

“Han stole it,” Luke answers.

“I won it!”

The cockpit dissolves into bickering again. Beru wishes that Chewie weren’t napping—when the three of them get like this, he can usually roar loud enough to get them to stop.

“All right!” she yells over the din.

At last, quiet descends. Beru rolls her eyes.

“Do you have any other options?”

Leia opens her mouth, then closes it again, clearly disgruntled, but she can’t come up with a better option any more than Beru can.

“There’s your answer, then.”

With that, she marches out, Luke on her heels. As soon as they round the corner, the bickering starts up again.

“I thought they’d get more tolerable once they figured all  _ that  _ out,” Luke says, waving his hand vaguely.

“Apparently not,” Beru says with a snort.

They remind her of herself and Owen, actually. They’d always been bickering—good-naturedly, usually—and Owen’s sharp tongue is the thing she misses most about him.

Beru glances over at Luke again. He’d woken up pretty shortly after they’d jumped to hyperspace for the first time, but his skin is still pretty sallow. 

“Are you feeling all right?”

Beru can see him resisting the urge to bat her hand away when she reaches up to feel his forehead. It’s a little warm, maybe, but nothing that concerns her too much.

“I’m fine. It was a big effort, I guess,” he says with a shrug. “Yoda said it could happen if I overexerted myself.”

Beru purses her lips. She hasn’t managed to get a lot of information out of Luke and Leia about their visit to the last Jedi master. She doesn’t understand why he spent twenty years hiding when he could have been assisting the Rebellion. At least Ben Kenobi had been keeping an eye on Luke.

(That thought makes her stomach twist itself into knots. Clearly, the man believed that Luke had an important role in the fight to come.)

“Did he mention how you could get it to stop?”

After all, Chewie won’t always be around to carry him off of battlefields.

Luke shrugs again. “Practice?”

That’s not very reassuring.

* * *

It’s mostly the desire to see the Falcon again that makes Lando Calrissian give Han landing clearance. He hopes that that old pirate didn’t do too much damage to her.

When he sees the people Han has with him, he has an entirely new reason to worry. Lando had always thought that Han was the small kind of trouble kind of guy. Clearly not. Like most of the galaxy, Lando has seen the holovid that the major news networks—the underground ones not run by the Empire, anyway—have been calling the return of the Jedi. Lando isn’t too sure about that. He might have been a kid back when there had really been Jedi in the galaxy, but he knows they didn’t look like that. 

Anyway. He’d have to be stupid to not recognize Princess Leia and the mysterious young man without a name. And unless his eyes are deceiving him, he thinks the old woman is the one who was behind the princess in the holovid.

Despite everything, Lando likes Han. But he happens to like his own life and all the lives under his protection on Cloud City, too. He can’t put them all at risk.

Lando forces himself to put on a smile as they disembark. He greets Han on autopilot, pulling him into a hug just to throw him off his rhythm. Then, he turns his attention to the rest of the...crew.

He remembers Chewbacca, of course—it's rather difficult to forget a Wookiee—and the two droids seem harmless enough. The remaining three steal most of his attention. He remembers the princess well. After Alderaan, her face had been plastered virtually everywhere as the spokeswoman of the survivors. But other than the holovid, he’s never seen the other two before.

The old woman shadows the young man closely, suspicious eyes narrowing on him. Lando fights to keep his face inscrutable as his heart starts to pound with the weight of what he has to do.

* * *

Vader only watches the holovid once he’s safely inside his chambers for the first time in weeks. He has no doubt that his master will know that he’s seen it, but what does it matter? He has no secrets anymore. None that matter, anyway.

Luke is powerful, that much is clear. Many in the old order could not have pulled that stunt off without significant training. And Leia. The lightsaber work was that of a novice, but a skilled one. Vader doubts that she had anyone besides her brother to teach her.

If he’d had any doubts that these are both his children, they are wiped away. It was a clever thing to separate them, to hide each in plain yet unobvious sight. Clever Obi-Wan, like always.

“Lord Vader.”

The voice—Piett’s—carries through the intercom. Vader presses a button and allows the chamber to dress him in his suit once more. It was a short respite today. He’s beginning to suspect that Sidious is timing his missions and messages this way on purpose.

“We received a transmission, my lord. From the planet Bespin.”

An inconsequential place, from what Vader knows. But clearly not the sort of planet where someone would put themselves under Imperial scrutiny unless completely necessary.

“What is it?”

Piett clears his throat. “The Jedi, sir—or—”

He pales, clearly realizing that he shouldn’t have addressed them as such. But Vader isn’t focused on him. For a moment, he’s envisioning storming Bespin and collecting his son and daughter. With the three of them, Palpatine will never stand a chance.

But if he goes, his master will follow. And if he gets his hands on Vader’s children, he will—

“Who has heard the transmission?”

“Myself, sir, and the radio tech that brought it to me.”

Vader does not have many cards to play, and he never had much of a sabacc face anyway. But what other choice does he have?

“Destroy any evidence of the recording and get me that tech.”

Perhaps there’s time to head his master off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Lando way too much to leave him out!
> 
> Vader is much less bold when he knows that Sidious knows about the twins. I did not see that coming.


	41. no excuses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for some mild, canon compliant torture

The clothes are too soft. Beru tugs a little on the sleeves that end perfectly at her wrists. Clearly, the little droid that had measured her knew what it was doing.

“I like that color on you,” Luke says with a smile as he reenters the common space of the guest quarters that they’ve been given.

“It’s bright,” Beru says.

The rebellion matches her thrift, so Beru has never really felt out of place there. But up here in the clouds, being the guest of whatever Calrissian is? She’s never felt quite so uncomfortable.

“It looks nice,” Luke repeats.

The new wardrobe suits him far better. It’s moments like these that remind Beru that her child is the son of an Old Republic senator. He smooths down the yellow jacket’s front while Beru fixes his collar.

“Usually, Han’s old ‘friends’ try to kill us,” Beru says, stepping back to admire her handiwork.

“Refreshing,” Luke says, but there’s a twist to his mouth that makes Beru think that there’s something else at play here.

“I’m starving,” Han says, muffled through the door.

It opens to admit Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and both droids.

“Lando wants us for dinner. A banquet, in my honor,” Han says with relish.

Beru catches herself before she rolls her eyes, but it’s a close thing. Still, she’s pretty hungry, so she’ll eat, even at the risk of inflating Han’s ego more than it’s been inflated already.

“Lead the way,” she says with a wry grin.

Cloud City reminds her more of the various Imperial ships that they’ve been imprisoned on than anything else. Home One doesn’t have the same clean lines, the gleaming white surfaces. It looks perpetually worn despite their best efforts. She likes it better.

Calrissian intercepts them a few yards out of the door. Beru raises her eyebrows at the swishy little cape he’s got going on. It’s not very practical, even if it looks nice.

There’s something cold in his eyes. Beru glances over at the others, and it seems that they’ve picked up on it, too. Han and Leia’s hands drift towards their blasters, and Luke reaches for his lightsaber.

“We don’t have a lot of time. Follow me.”

Unsure of what else to do, they fall into step behind him. Calrissian keeps his pace steady, never faltering, but up close, Beru can see that one of his hands is shaking.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he says, barely moving his lips. “They got here before you arrived.”

Something cold settles in Beru’s stomach. Of course they had. 

“Imps,” Leia says.

Calrissian nods.

“I gave the order to evacuate the city when you arrived,” he continues, never slowing. “But it needs to look convincing. If they think I tried to trick them, they’ll--”

“--punish innocent people,” Luke finishes. “We understand.”

Han splutters. “Wait. We do?”

Beru grudgingly has to agree with her nephew. Sometimes, you have to make small sacrifices for the greater good. You learn that on Tatooine. This is no different. At least Lando is trying to help.

“They need to see you,” Lando says. “Once they do, I’ll get you out of here.”

Beru swallows. “Who is ‘they’?” 

Lando shrugs. “I’ve only seen stormtroopers. Their leader said that Vader was on his way, but unless he’s arrived in the last few minutes…”

She glances sideways at Luke. His mechanical hand twitches at his side. Beru swallows back a swell of fear. They’ve faced Vader before, and they’ll face him again. It’s just sooner than Beru would have liked. And one of these days, when she shoots him, it’ll actually stick. 

“Are you really?” Lando asks, turning to Luke and Leia.

Luke seems to realize what he’s talking about before Beru does.

“Yes,” he says. “We are.”

He nods, once. “Then it’s worth it. Be ready.”

He opens the door to a full battalion. Beru yanks out her weapon and fires off a few volleys before dodging out of the line of fire.

“Time to go!” Han yells.

They wheel around. It occurs to Beru that Lando very well could have placed a tracker on the Falcon, but this seems like a lot of work for a trap. So rather than voicing her concerns, she puts her energy into sprinting along behind him.

There’s no way that Beru would have been able to navigate her way back to the ship. They’ve taken so many turns since then. 

“Left!” Lando orders in between gasps for air.

Clearly, someone hasn't been literally running for his life once a week for the last two years. The whole running into a wall of white armor and running for her life thing is getting old.

* * *

After Lando’s question about their powers, it’s clear that Luke trusts him. Leia doesn’t need a psychic connection with him to realize that. So when he turns tooka eyes on Han, Leia doesn’t object. Han grumbles, loudly, but doesn’t stop Lando from getting on board and settling in the chair behind him and Chewie in the cockpit.

Once they’ve taken off, Leia heads to the bunks. Her head is spinning. The coldness that always signals Vader’s arrival isn’t there. Leia is under no illusions that Vader hasn’t worked out the truth; the man is a tactical genius. So why wasn’t he there to meet them?

“You’re thinking really loudly, Leia.”

She doesn’t jump when the door slides open to let Luke in, but it’s a close thing.

“Did the general teach you how to read minds and fail to tell me?”

Now that was a Jedi skill that Leia could stand to learn. It would certainly make negotiation easier.

“No. I just know you.”

It’s true. After two years, Luke knows her better than maybe anybody in the galaxy, save her real father. More than anybody living, then.

“Why wasn’t he there?” Leia says after a moment.

Luke is going to pry it out of her anyway. That’s his speciality.

“Maybe he--” Luke cuts himself off. “Do you think he...likes it?”

Leia blinks. “Likes what?”

Luke shrugs. “His life.”

He can’t be serious. But one look at Luke--guileless, forgiving Luke, who only knew one small city on a dustball of a planet for most of his life--tells her all she needs to know.

“He chose it,” Leia snaps. “It’s only his life because he wanted it to be.”

Without looking back, she storms out to the cockpit to give Calrissian the talking-to of a lifetime.

* * *

Vader kneels, still, despite the fact that the joints in his left leg have locked up, too paralyzed by the last bout of lightning to even bend. It drags behind him almost comically.

Sidious wonders to himself, amused, how he plans to walk out of his throne room.

“I spoke to one of your officers,” he continues as if he hadn’t interrupted himself with the lighting. “He had interesting news. The Executor, it seems, received a transmission informing it that Skywalker’s children had been tracked to Bespin. The same transmission, in fact, that I personally received.”

He lets loose again. Vader reels backwards, but doesn’t cry out. Sideous scowls.

“And yet, the Executor’s commander did nothing.”

Another blast of lightning. Vader crashes to the floor again.

“Do you have something you wish to tell me, Lord Vader? An excuse?”

To his surprise, Vader raises his head. “It--it will not happen again, my master.”

Sidious blasts him so powerfully that he drops again, senseless, but he stops short of killing his apprentice. It’s too soon for that.

It is some time, after all, before he’ll be able to turn one of the children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh Sidious. that's not a good idea.
> 
> in other news, Leia wildly overestimates the intelligence of the Skywalker men.


	42. starlight

“Senator Mothma wants to use the footage,” Leia says with no preamble whatsoever.

She plunks herself down across from Beru and Luke, setting down her meal with a clatter. Beru is rather proud of the soup today, so she frowns a little when it slops over the side of Leia’s bowl.

“The Jedi footage? Isn’t that dangerous?” Beru asks.

After all, the Empire has been tracking down and killing Force-sensitives for Luke and Leia’s entire lives.

“We’re not sure what the numbers are actually like, but she thinks that a majority of people with holonet access in the galaxy have seen it already. So it’s not any more danger than we’re in already.”

The  _ what _ ?

“The majority,” Luke replies faintly. Then, “We’re not gonna be able to go undercover anymore, are we?”

Beru thinks that, thanks to all of this, they shouldn’t be allowed to leave Home One ever again, but she doubts that the two of them will let that happen.

“And she wants more,” Leia continues as if Luke hadn’t spoken. “More proof that we’ve got two of the last Jedi in the galaxy on our side. There are plenty of people that still believe what happened to them—”

“Us,” Luke says.

Leia pauses, blinks, and then nods. “What happened to us was an injustice.” 

Beru doesn’t remember a lot from the beginning of the Empire. It wasn’t like much had changed on Tatooine. And she’d been busy with Luke, and then it had been the wet season and then—well. Big galactic happenings just didn’t matter to her, really.

But one image stuck out to her—a bit off of one of the last Coruscanti newsreels before the Empire had taken over the major news networks. The Jedi temple on Coruscant, smoking. She remembers clutching Luke a little closer to her chest at the thought of the children that had been slaughtered.

An injustice. A bit of an understatement, if you asked her.

Luke looks uneasy. “It’s not just a stunt, what we can do.”

“I know,” Leia sighs. “It would mean a lot to a lot of people, I think.”

Luke gets up, despite the fact that there’s still food on his plate. It’s a grave insult on Tatooine to leave food uneaten.

“I’ll think about it,” he says before hurrying away.

Beru pulls his plate towards herself and finishes his food in silence.

* * *

Home One always reminds her of the ships of the Clone Wars. Not in appearance, obviously—the ship is far more worn-down than the Republic would have ever allowed their fleet to be. But the feelings she’s overwhelmed with the moment she steps on board? Hope. Self-righteousness. Determination. It’s all the same, a reminder that the old war never really ended.

She knows that Mothma probably wants to talk strategy—it’s becoming harder and harder to find leaders from the old days who actually know how war works. But Ahsoka has no interest in that today. She’s come for one specific reason and she can feel him in the Force. She follows the beacon, and a small smile on her face despite herself. It’s rare that she gets to spend time around a Force-sensitive these days.

She comes upon the boy standing in front of a viewport, bathed in starlight. Ahsoka’s breath catches in her throat at the sight.

After Rex showed her the holo, she’d taken time to process it. Skywalker is a common enough name on Tatooine that she’d been able to disregard the Death Star pilot’s last name at first. But the holo confirms it.

This is Anakin Skywalker’s child.

He turns as soon as he feels Ahsoka’s eyes on him. His eyes are a familiar blue. Ahsoka’s breath catches in his throat. He’s shorter than Anakin, but she can see flashes of him in Luke’s features. 

No recognition. Apparently, she didn’t make it into any of Obi-Wan’s stories. Or maybe he’d never told any at all—the man had always been a proponent of revealing only the necessary information.

“Hello, Luke.”

He smiles. It’s not one of Anakin’s quick, self-conscious grins. It’s broad and wide and splits his whole face. Ahsoka thinks, for a moment, of Senator Amidala.

“Nice to meet you. We haven’t met before, have we?”

Ahsoka’s heart aches. In another, kinder universe, he would have been like a brother or a nephew.

“I’m Ahsoka Tano.”

No reaction to that, either. Ahsoka slowly lowers her hood and comes to stand beside him, staring out into space.

“I come here to think,” he explains.

Ahsoka smiles. “It’s big, isn’t it? The galaxy. It makes your problems seem small, no matter what they are.”

His hand drifts to his side. Ahsoka was expecting to see Anakin’s lightsaber. That would have stung enough. But it’s Obi-Wan’s.

“May I—?” Her voice is hoarse, so she tries again. “May I see that?”

A flash of alarm crosses his face. Ahsoka pulls her robes aside to show her own blades at her hips.

“You’re a Jedi,” he says, eyes wide.

He hands her Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. Ahsoka turns it over in her palms. She considers telling him that she’s not, that she hasn’t felt like a Jedi in over twenty years. But there’s awe in his eyes that makes her nod.

“That lightsaber you have now belonged to an old friend.”

Luke’s face lights up. “You knew Ben? I mean, Obi-Wan?”

Ahsoka’s chest aches. She wishes more than anything that she’d been able to see him again before he’d died. Sometimes, she swears that she can feel him in the Force.

“Very well. He trained my master.”

She waits for it to hit him. It only takes a moment.

“Your master—”

“Your father,” she says carefully. “Anakin Skywalker.”

The hero-worship in Luke’s eyes dies a sudden death.

“You know, don’t you?” Ahsoka whispers.

Luke nods, solemn and sad. Ahsoka thinks of Malachor, of one singular revealed yellow eyes.

“He told me.”

He glances down at his hand—mechanical. Ahsoka does the math and doesn’t like the answer.

“I loved him,” Ahsoka says quietly.

Luke’s mouth thins. “My mother. Did she—”

Ahsoka nods again. “I didn’t know about them. I thought so, for a long time, but—yes. She did. Very much.”

Even when she’d thought that Anakin and Senator Amidala were nothing more than friends it had been clear how much she’d cared for him.

“That—” Luke discreetly wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “That’s good.”

She places a hand on his shoulder as they both turn back to the stars.

“What were you thinking about?” she asks.

He sighs. “Mon Mothma wants to use Leia’s and my powers.”

Ahsoka shakes her head. The senator had asked her, once, to allow holos of herself to be published. They’d agreed, though—Fulcrum’s work was too important to be compromised like that.

“You have reservations.”

“Yeah.” He flexes his mechanical fingers again. “The Force isn’t a party trick.”

She smiles. There may not have been a temple for Luke to be raised in, but he’s learned the proper lessons elsewhere.

“No. Mothma’s heart is in the right place, though.”

Luke nods. His eyes drift to Ahsoka’s lightsabers. 

“I don’t know enough. I can’t promise the rebellion a Jedi knight.” His eyes widen in hope. “You. You could train me, here, with the rebellion.” 

For a moment, she’s tempted to say yes. He is Anakin’s child—this is a chance to do it all over again. But she can’t. Not again.

“I’m sorry, Luke. But no. It was nice to meet you.” 

He smiles through the disappointment. “Could you—sometime—I’d like to hear some stories about him. From before.”

Ahsoka nods. “I think I can do that.” She squeezes his shoulder and hands Obi-Wan’s lightsaber back. “May the Force be with you, Luke.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in honor of the new Mando episode, have a little Ahsoka. as a treat :D
> 
> I've seen about half of TCW and Ahsoka makes me cry.


	43. born of the desert

“I’ll do it.”

It’s been a few days since the conversation over lunch, and Beru is surprised that it’s taken Luke this long to come to a conclusion. The boy that had fought so viciously with Owen would have made his choice in a moment. Beru supposes it’s a sign of growing up.

“Really?”

Leia looks up from the hologram—she’s looking through the records of their last battle, searching for strategic weaknesses. (She’s scarily good at it—she gets this look in her eyes when she spots one. It’s the same look she gets when she’s arguing with Han and he’s misspoken.)

“I have a condition.”

Leia raises her eyebrows so high that Beru is surprised they don’t vanish into her hairline. Really, she shouldn’t be surprised. She’s the one that taught Luke to talk like that, after all.

“What is it?”

“I want us to finish our training with Master Yoda.”

Leia purses her lips, so Luke plows on.

“You want to give the galaxy Jedi? Fine. But we’ve got to give them real Jedi, and I don’t want to do it without you.”

Leia says nothing for a moment. Instead, she taps a quick note to whoever had sent the holo for analysis and stands.

“We can’t be gone for too long,” she says.

Beru stands, too, smiling at the surprise on both of their faces.

“What? I’m not letting the two of you wander off alone.”

* * *

When Luke had told her that this Master Yoda fellow lived in a hut on a swamp planet, Beru had still been expecting something slightly more...grand.

Then again, Ben Kenobi had lived in a hut in the middle of the Jundland Wastes. Three weeks after Luke’s arrival, concerned for his wellbeing, Beru had hiked out to check on him. The idiot had almost run out of water and he hadn’t managed to get the ancient vaporator working. So, historically, Beru has never been all that impressed by so-called Jedi masters.

The Jedi himself is a species Beru doesn’t recognize, even though a combination of her time spent shopping in Mos Eisley and with the rebellion has allowed her to see far more than her fair share.

He looks at her every bit as curiously as Beru looks at him. Beru gets the impression that he’s staring into her soul or reading her thoughts. She used to feel the same way on the rare occasions that she’d run into Ben Kenobi at the market back home. She felt the same way on the Death Star when he told her that she would need to look after Leia, too.

Finally, Yoda unpins her, turning back to the twins, Beru can’t help a surge of relief in her chest.

“Returned, you have,” he observes. “Owe Obi-Wan an apology, I do.”

Beru stares, half expecting the other Jedi to melt out of the mist. It certainly wouldn’t be the most surprising thing to come out of the last few years, at any rate. But there’s no motion in the trees. Beru turns her attention back to the scene unfolding in front of her.

“We want to complete our training,” Luke says, glancing sideways at Leia.

She takes a deep breath before she adds, “Both of us.”

Yoda’s large, searching eyes find Beru again.

“And you?”

She laughs. “Not me. I don’t have the Force or anything.”

Yoda shakes his head. “Have the Force, we all do.”

Beru can barely stop herself from scoffing. She could never move the pillar with her mind like Luke or wield a lightsaber like Leia.

“Funny, you find this?”

Beru awkwardly clears her throat, a little disconcerted by the attention on her. Neither Luke nor Leia say anything, although they exchange a look that Beru can’t quite read.

“I’m not like Luke and Leia,” she says at last. “I’m—I’m a moisture farmer. The freeborn daughter of slaves. I’m not—”

Yoda limps forward a few steps, leaning heavily on his cane. Beru fights back the urge to reach down and help him.

“You are,” he says, rapping on her knee with the walking stick. “Surrounds us all, the Force does. A part of us all, it is.”

He gives her knees one last tap before making his slow, painful way over to Luke and Leia.

* * *

A month passes like this, and then another. Beru amuses herself by figuring out which plants on Dagaboh taste best together. (The first time she watches Yoda bolt down one of her stews like he’s never tasted something so delicious, she’d almost burst with pride. Then again, less than a week later, she’d witnessed him eating a live frog. So maybe it’s not much of an achievement.)

She finds herself tinkering with the hut, too—fixing the leaky roof, fixing the chimney so that the whole place doesn’t fill with smoke when they cook, little things like that. Yoda protests halfheartedly, but never with enough conviction to make her stop.

She wonders how he’s convinced himself that a lonely existence on a swamp planet is what he deserves.

One night, she’s busy working on tomorrow’s dinner when the old Jedi Master beckons for her to sit in front of him. Beru does, crossing her legs like Luke and Leia do when they’re meditating. She immediately feels silly, but Yoda doesn’t comment. 

“Difficult, teaching is,” he says.

Beru frowns. “They’re doing their best.”

Sure, Luke has more patience than Leia only because she has the least patience of any person that Beru has ever known, but they’re not bad students. And they will never be bad Jedi. Of that, Beru is absolutely certain.

“Not the student. The act of teaching itself, difficult is.” Yoda turns those searching eyes on her, and Beru tries to not squirm. “A teacher, you are, Beru.”

Beru snorts. As a girl, the idea had crossed her mind a handful of times. She’d always liked the lessons at home and later in Anchorhead when she’d lived with her aunt and uncle. But they’d had a few bad harvests and Beru had found herself at home instead of learning.

So no teaching. It had all worked out, though—Owen had needed three sets of hands at home, so she would have had to leave her post anyway.

“I don’t think I’ve ever taught anyone anything.”

Yoda shakes his head as he folds one of the moldy old blankets over his shoulders. (Beru silently resolves to bring him a new one the next time they—or, at least, Luke and Leia—come back.

“A parent, you are.”

Once she realizes that he’s not going to go on until she acknowledges him, Beru nods uneasily, wondering where he’s going with this. The Jedi, after all, wernet parents. 

“Difficult, it can be, to raise a child.”

There’s something distant in the old Jedi’s eyes. Beru wonders if there’s a story there, but she keeps the questions to herself.

“Yes,” she agrees at last.

“Afraid, he is,” Yoda says at last. “Of loss.”

Beru nods. It’s a fear born of the desert, of growing up in a place where a storm or a Hutt or a dry season could take everything away.

“He knows what loss is like.”

A lump forms in her throat at the thought of Owen. He’d know what to do—after he finished laughing at the absurdity of the situation, anyway.

“Learn,” he must, Yoda sighs. “A path to the Dark, fear of loss is.”

Beru wants to ask about Anakin—about Vader. But she’s too afraid of the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew! sorry for the wait! we should be back to a more regular posting schedule for the next few weeks.
> 
> (I like to think that Yoda is thinking about Dooku, there)


	44. containment

General Yoda minds it less when they leave, Leia finds, now that he knows that they’ll return. It’s easy to tell that the old Jedi master thinks that their time would be best spent constantly on Dagobah, completing their training. But with the Alliance’s leadership decimated what seems like every other week, Leia can’t afford that kind of time off.

(Doesn’t the general know what it’s like to run a war? For the life of her, Leia can’t figure out what he’s been doing in a swamp for twenty years rather than helping the rebellion.)

This time, Aunt Beru isn’t with them—Leia thinks all the Force stuff freaks her out, and she can’t blame her. 

Leia slows her pace to a walk, resisting the urge to double over. Her father had made sure when she joined the Alliance that she was fit, but she hasn’t done this much physical activity ever.

“Something’s wrong,” Luke says sharply.

He lowers General Yoda to the ground before taking a half step forward, partially shielding Leia from the dark mouth of a cave ahead of them. General Yoda seats himself on the ground and crosses his legs.

“Feel it, can you?” he asks Leia.

She nods. There’s a certain heavilness to the air, a feeling of compression on her chest. It reminds her of Vader on the bridge of the Death Star, of the emperor in his terrible, stifling palace. Leia takes in a deep breath of swamp air to ground herself.

“Strong with the dark, this place is,” General Yoda says, his eyes drifting closed.

Leia imagines those doors her father taught her to construct, but even they don’t keep out the cold completely.

“Why are we here?” she asks.

“In, you must go.”

Leia glances over at her brother. He doesn’t take his eyes off of the cave, but his non-mech hand twitches toward General Kenobi’s lightsaber at his hip.

“Why?” Luke asks.

The general doesn’t respond. He’s deadly still, as if he’s in deep meditation. Leia has noticed that he seems slower, more deliberate lately.

“Come on.”

Leia snatches Luke by the hand and leads him into the cave. What passes for light on Dagobah is immediately snuffed out. Luke lights the saber, casting everything around them in an eerie blue light not unlike General Kenboi’s ghost does.

Where is he to give her a straight answer, anyway?

“I don’t like this,” she mutters.

“Stay behind me.”

Leia would ordinarily argue with him, but seeing as he has their only source of light, she’s inclined to go along with him. 

The cold feeling grows. Leia resists the urge to wrap her arms around herself—she needs to be able to reach her blaster.

“Leia.”

The whole world—the swamp water in her socks, the solid weight of her blaster at her hip, the warmth of Luke at her side—drops away in an instant. Bail Organa looks just as he must have in the moments before his death: weary from travel, a five o’clock shadow that Leia’s mother would brush her knuckles over on his face.

The Force let her speak to General Kenboi. Why not Dad?

“Dad.”

He dips his head in acknowledgement but doesn’t open his arms. Leia swallows past the lump in her throat.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Leia whispers.

All of the pain and hurt of the last few years surges up like a Mon Cala tidal wave. Leia hasn't’ allowed herself to feel anger at her parents, not with their deaths and Alderaan’s destruction so fresh. But now, it’s all she can feel. Dad doesn’t say a word.

“I deserved to know!” Leia snarls

To her horror, she can feel tears building in her eyes. She forces them back with sheer force of will alone.

“You’re angry,” Dad observes.

Leia almost screams. It reminds her of the days spent prepping for her Senate run. Dad would sit across from her at the breakfast table, lightly commenting on the state of Imperial affairs, knocking down her indignant arguments like dominos, trying to teach her calm even in the face of Imperial logic.

(It had taken over a year of that prep work before he’d deemed Leia ready to declare her candidacy. She’d been afraid that she’d have to wait for the next election cycle.)

“Of course I am!” she shouts, uncaring that her voice echoes dangerously in the cavern. “He’s—I—my whole life, you let me think that I knew where I came from!”

She’d always been distantly proud of the parents who’d died in the last days of the Clone Wars on a relief mission. Bail and Breha were her real parents, but she’d been content knowing that her biological parents had been decent people, too.

“Don’t you see, Leia?” Dad says patiently, clasping his hands in front of him. “We were scared of what you’d become.”

Something heavy drops into the pit of Leia’s stomach. Her mouth snaps shut, and Dad smiles in the way he always does when he wins an argument. Leia feels tiny.

“What?”

Dad smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s the smile Leia remembers from years of going to galas and balls and parties, gathering intelligence for the Alliance.

“Why do you think Luke went with Obi-Wan while you stayed with us, Leia?”

Leia’s brain grinds to a halt. She understands the importance of splitting them up as the Empire rose—even if she aches sometimes for the could-have-been world where she and Luke grew up side by side.

But she’d always assumed that the separation had been mostly random. What’s the difference between two newborns, after all?

“He could sense it on you. All that fear, all that anger. It reminded Obi-Wan of him.”

The cold seeps through Leia’s skin and into her bones. She shakes her head, but she can’t get her mouth to protest.

“They didn’t want to train you. They didn’t want you to know the truth, so Breha and I kept it from you all those years.” 

“General Yoda is training me right now,” Leia finally gets out.

Dad shakes his head. “He had no choice once you knew the truth. He had to try to contain you.”

It’s not true. It’s not. Leia knows that she has those feelings inside of her that the general tells her to master, that she doesn’t know how to control. But she isn’t like him, if only because she refuses to be.

“I don’t need to be contained,” she snarls. 

Dad just shakes his head. Leia wants to scream and cry but all she can do is simmer in her rage.

“You’re not him,” Leia manages.

Her father would never look at her with such a mixture of disgust and hatred. Dad watches her steadily as Leia raises her blaster.

By the time she fires her first shot, the vision or whatever it is is gone. Standing in its place is Luke.

“Leia,” he says.

He flicks his finger and General Kenobi’s lightsaber deactivates. Then, he lurches forward and pulls her into a hug. Leia hugs back, burying her face in his shoulder.

“What was that?” she whispers.

Luke stiffens under her grip, but Leia doesn’t loosen it.

“You saw him too?” Luke asks.

Leia lets out a breath. “My father?”

Luke blinks uncomprehendingly. “Our father, Leia.”

She wrenches back out of his grip and wraps her arms around herself instead. The chill of the cave permeates everything.

“He’s not our father. We have half his DNA, but he’s not our father.”

Luke looks like he wants to argue, but he correctly reads the expression on Leia’s face and backs down.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says instead, grabbing her by the arm.

They make their way out of the cave by the glow of General Kenobi’s lightsaber. Leia can’t shake the feeling that she didn’t learn what General Yoda wanted her to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as Leia was chatting with her father, Luke had his moment with his from ESB :D
> 
> (of course, none of this is true--but it's all about what Leia believes, isn't it?)


	45. writing on the wall

Hoth is quite possibly the most miserable planet that Beru has ever set foot on. When she tells Han this, he scoffs and reminds her that she grew up on the worst planet the galaxy has to offer.

Well. At least you could eke out a living on Tatooine. There’s nothing in this frozen wasteland, which is precisely the reason that the rebellion has chosen it for a base.

“We’re safe from the Empire, but we’re going to freeze to death,” Beru grouses as she kicks snow off of her boots.

Unprompted, Han helps her tug off her gloves—when it gets cold her fingers stiffen up so much that she can barely bend them, much less manipulate them enough to get her gloves off alone.

“Three square meals a day and no bounty hunters on my tail,” Han says, knocking snow off of his goggles. “I ain’t complaining.”

Beru can’t argue with that. Knowing that Luke and Leia are safe on Dagobah, a planet that has safely hidden the Empire’s public enemy number one for over twenty years now, has done wonders for the anxiety that’s been sitting in her gut since she’d spotted smoke rising from the homestead.

“Speaking of three square meals a day, have you eaten yet?”

Han shakes his head, so the two of them make their way to the hanger bay that’s been serving as a dining hall. In a corner, Lando is regaling a group of new recruits with some story about a recent supply run. Beru smiles behind her cup of caf. He’s fit in better with the rebels than she’d expected he would.

“Any word about when they’ll be back?” Han asks.

He throws his jacket over the back of his chair. Beru hasn’t so much as popped open a button, and she has no intentions to.

“Not yet. Luke said it might be longer than usual.”

It’s a relief to know that they’re safe, but these little ventures are the longest that she’s been separated from Luke since he was thirteen years old and Owen dragged him on a two-week trek for vaporator parts.

“I still can’t wrap my head around it,” Han confesses.

Beru nods. Her spoon clinks against the side of her bowl of soup—she thinks Jemma was in charge of dinner tonight, which means that it’s sure to be spicy—as she tries to figure out what to say.

“The Force stuff, you mean.”

He nods. “I believe it, I guess. I mean, the psychic stuff, anyway. I’ve seen them both move stuff with their minds. I’m not sold on the idea that some cosmic thing controls my fate, though.”

Beru nods. It’s pretty creepy if she thinks about it for too long. The idea that a—well—force would choose Luke for some great destiny but fail to give her the tools that she needed to protect him makes her furious.

“Yoda says it doesn’t control us, really,” she says with a shrug. She’d asked the last time she’d been on Dagobah. Most of the old Jedi’s explanation had gone over her head, but that had stuck. “It’s not like it’s making our choices for us or anything. It just surrounds us. All living things are filled with it.” 

Han shudders. “Yeah. No thanks.”

They eat their soup in silence for a few minutes. Now that she’s actually beginning to warm up, she’s starting to get a bit tired, despite the fact that the suns of Tatooine wouldn’t have even begun to set yet.

“They’re different,” Han says around the last mouthful of soup. 

Beru nods. “Yeah.” She scrapes the bottom of her bowl. “When Luke was a kid, he always knew when sandstorms were coming. Not the normal way that all the moisture farmers do, though. He’d sit up in bed in the morning and refuse to go to school because he hated having to sit in a classroom when the wind started. He’d have these dreams, too.”

It brings her straight back to cuddling Luke against her chest in the middle of the night while he cried. But it had always been Owen, his deep voice warm and soothing, to talk him down. Beru misses him so much.

“Dreams?” Han asks.

“Nightmares, mostly. And he’d have these moments where he’d say things and they’d—a few days later, just long enough to forget, they’d come true.”

It had always been vague enough to seem like coincidence, but it had happened often enough to weird out Owen and Beru both.

“Leia has them, too,” Han says after a moment. “I don’t know if they’re of the future, but they’re bad.”

Beru nods. It’s not hard to imagine. She dreams about the fire in the homestead at least once a week. She can only imagine how often Leia dreams of Alderaan.”

“They’re different,” Beru says, “but we love them anyway.”

At that precise moment, an alarm blares.

“We had a good run,” Han says with a sigh.

The entire room bursts to life. Beru catches sight of Lando carefully shepherding the new recruits out of the room.

“Is the Falcon actually working?” Beru asks.

Han splutters enough to make her nervous, but eventually comes up with: “Chewie had some last minute stuff to work on this morning.”

Okay. At least Chewie is pretty good at last minute fixes.

“Come on.”

Beru has gotten much better at running since the Death Star, but she’s not as quick as normal when wearing several pounds of snow gear.

“Guess that droid from this morning meant they were getting close,” Han says as they whip around the corner.

The ground shakes violently. Beru stumbles sideways, and it’s only Han giving her a shove in the other direction that has her on her feet.

“Bombing,” she points out unnecessarily, feeling a little sick.

It’s not like this is the first time that they’ve been chased out of a base—it usually happens once every few months. But normally they’re already hitting hyperspace by the time the Imps show up. Their close calls are getting closer and closer. Beru can see the writing on the wall, and she doesn’t like what she’s reading.

(A guilty part of her is relieved that Luke is far away. The rest of her immediately feels bad thinking about his squadmates, who are about to run a probably deadly mission without him.)

“Stop!” 

Beru grabs Han by the back of the shirt and hauls him back just before the hallway in front of him crumbles away. Weak Hoth sunlight spills through the small hole in the ceiling. Beru curses under her breath. It hadn’t taken much bombardment to do this much damage. If even a single person was left on the base in less than an hour, they’d be killed

Or captured. That sounds far worse.

“Take the left?” Han asks.

Beru nods and takes off down the hallway after him. It’s the longer route, but they make it to the hangar with the Falcon in it before the entirety of Echo Base collapses on their heads, which Beru supposes is a blessing.

“We made i—”

The ground lurches. Beru falls backwards, landing painfully on her tailbone. She groans as she rolls over to get back to her feet. The ceiling has caved in, completely covering the entrance to the hanger.

“Han!”

She scrambles upright, clawing at the rubble, hoping against hope that Han isn’t underneath it.

“Mrs. Lars?” 

She sags, relieved, her hand on her chest. “Are you all right?”

“Hurt my shoulder, but it’s nothing a few days can’t fix,” Han replies. “You?”

Beru rotates her wrists. One of them twinges, but it’s hardly the end of the world. She’ll be all right.

“I’m fine. Is Chewie there? The droids?”

“Yeah, and the Falcon’s good to go. We can try to shoot through—”

“No, don’t do that.” 

Beru glances behind her at yet another collapses. There’s nowhere for her to get out of the way. She explains it to Han, who curses.

“We’re gonna get you out of there. Just—”

“Shh!”

Beru turns away from the hanger, back to the hallway that they’d just come down. Unless her eyes are completely deceiving her, some of the chunks of ceiling are moving.

“Luke?” 

They’re definitely moving—moving with the Force. Beru smiles. He always knows precisely when to show up.

The warmth in her chest turns to ice when the rubble moves just enough for her to see a black mask.

“Han! Go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh oh?
> 
> (welcome to ROTJ, early :D)


	46. small

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for brief consideration of something that could be considered suicide. Check the notes at the end for more information.

This is the easiest Jedi-related thing that Leia has had to do so far. She’s not exactly an expert in mechanics, but Leia has a much better eye for that than for, say, moving a rock with her mind.

“I need—” she says to Luke, who, as if he can read her mind, hands over precisely the small piece that she needs.

They’ve been like this more and more often lately. Some days, Leia will go hours before realizing that she hasn’t spoken a word. Luke just seems to understand her, and she him. The chaos both of them could have caused growing up alongside each other on Alderaan would have made her father’s hair gray twice as fast.

“There,” Leia says, sliding the last piece into place.

Master Yoda hums approvingly. The lightsaber fits in her hand better than General Kenobi’s ever did, although Leia is strangely sad to leave it behind.

At an encouraging nod from Master Yoda, Leia ignites her new lightsaber. The purple blade takes her by surprise—most of the Jedi in her father’s old holos had either blue or green. She moves it experimentally, smiling at the ease with which it cuts through the air.

Luke ignites his, which is the same bright green as Master Yoda’s. Leia can’t stop herself from feeling a slight measure of relief at the fact that he’s chosen something completely distinct from Vader.

“It feels—” he begins, but his gut must twist just as Leia’s does, because he falls silent.

It takes all of Leia’s considerable willpower not to double over. She locks her knees and breathes through it.

“Did you see that?” Luke asks hoarsely, reopening his eyes.

They seem unnaturally blue, even in the foggy gloom of Dagobah.

“See what?” Leia asks.

“He has her,” Luke whispers, turning to Master Yoda, “doesn’t he?”

Master Yoda’s ears droop as he nods. “Taken, Beru has been.”

Fear sparks, white hot, in Leia’s chest. It’s not a question of what will happen to Aunt Beru, not really. It’s a question of how much she’ll be forced to endure before they kill her. Leia knows better than to hope that it will be quick. Vader knows who she is and what she means to both of them.

“We have to go,” Luke says, scrambling to his feet.

“Luke. We’ve never gotten anyone out of high security Imperial detainment,” Leia tells him.

Aunt Beru has done everything she can to fill the hole of Leia’s dead parents, and she’ll always be grateful for that, but Leia is first and foremost a strategist. Rescuing Han and a hundred slaves from a Hutt is one thing, but freeing someone from the Empire is another entirely.

“We escaped from Imperial custody!” Luke says sharply. “Twice!”

Barely. Sometimes, Leia thinks that Vader must have let them escape that second time after realizing that he wouldn’t be able to convert Luke to the Dark Side.

“We got lucky.” She catches one of Luke’s wrists in her hand and turns him to face her. “If you let them realize how much power they have over you, they’ll hurt her longer.”

It had always been an unspoken rule in the Organa household—if you were captured, rescue wouldn’t be coming. It was part of the reason that Leia had been so resigned to her fate on the Death Star.

“We have to go!”

Leia shakes her head, but Luke isn’t looking at her. She looks to  Master Yoda, but he’s not protesting. 

“We’ll talk to Mon Mothma,” Luke says, fumbling back to the tent that holds all of their things. “Aunt Beru knows classified information. She’ll want her back before she breaks.”

Master Yoda follows along silently. Leia resists the urge to whack him with his own walking stick. Where is the stern Jedi that had warned her away from rescuing Han?

“Manipulating you, the Sith are,” Master Yoda says quietly.

Luke all but snarls, “I don’t care!”

He starts throwing the things he thinks they’ll need into a bag.

Master Yoda takes Leia by the elbow and pulls her out of Luke’s earshot.

“Careful, you must be,” he instructs. “Complete, your training is, yes, but the temptation of the Dark is strong.”

Leia wants to ask how their training could possibly be complete when she knows how long a Jedi padawan trained before ever being made a knight. But Master Yoda makes his way back to Luke as if he'd said nothing at all.

* * *

Despite nearly three years worth of encounters demonstrating to her that shooting at Vader is about as effective as praying for a rainstorm in the middle of the Jundland Wastes, Beru raises her blaster. Vader stops the first three shots in midair mere inches from the breastplate of his suit.

Fine. She doesn’t want to leave Luke and Leia, but if she can take Vader out with her, it will be worth it. Beru quickly changes her aim to the ceiling.

“Han! Go!” she shouts, hoping that he’s already gone.

Then, she fires. The world tilts as the base rumbles yet again. Her aim is dead on anyway, dislodging a boulder in the ceiling that probably would have come down in a few minutes even without her help.

Beru shuts her eyes and braces for impact, but it never comes. When she reopens them, one at a time, it's to find most of the ceiling suspended in the air above her head. Beru takes two steps in her attempt to flee right past him before her feet freeze to the floor. And this time, it’s not the ice.

She’s watched Luke and Leia struggle to lift one pebble into the air while focusing on another. The amount of power and concentration necessary to trap her and keep the ceiling from collapsing on them both is unimaginable. And yet it’s right in front of her.

Once again, Beru curses the Force for making her feel so small.

She is still free enough to turn her head to make eye contact—or, as close as she can manage with his mask—with the monster in front of her. He flicks his wrist and Beru’s blaster goes flying.

Robbed of any way to defend herself, Beru clenches her fists at her sides. Punching what she’s pretty sure is durasteel is certain to hurt, but it might make her feel better.

“Are you gonna kill me?”

Her voice trembles a little despite her best efforts to keep it steady. He’s taller than she remembers from her last encounter, and he’s certainly taller than Anakin Skywalker had been.

Vader doesn’t answer, but he doesn't have to. Beru knows perfectly well that she’s worth far more alive than dead.

Vader takes two steps forward, gloved hand outstretched, and Beru tries her best to flinch back. Despite her efforts, he makes contact. It feels like he’s cleaving her head open with a lightsaber. Beru tries to scream, but it’s like her vocal cords are no longer under her control. Instead, she flails uselessly, still frozen in place. Thoughts and images rise to the surface of her mind unbidden—everything since her last encounter with Vader in quick succession.

The Wookiee escapees that had helped heal Luke. The Stormchasers and their chainbreaker network. The look on Jabba’s face as his kingdom collapsed around him. Lando’s betrayal of the Empire.

And, despite her desperate attempts to think of anything else, Dagobah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Beru attempts to destroy the hallway, which would likely kill Vader and herself, but is unsuccessful.
> 
> poor Beru D: I'm so excited about this sequence. at the moment, we're looking about seven chapters to go until the end (including an epilogue).


	47. a job done right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for what could be considered suicide; read the endnote for more information.

Getting the Alliance to send them coordinates for the rendezvous this time is tricky. Leia assumes that means that they just barely escaped Hoths with their lives. Or, most of them, anyway. Aunt Beru, after all, hadn’t escaped.

At the thought, Leia glances over at Luke, who is hunched over the helm of the small freighter that they’ve commandeered for their regular detours to Dagobah. He hasn’t said anything about any new visions, but the set of his jaw hasn't loosened any. Leia wonders if it hurts.

Leia is not the type for empty platitudes, so she doesn’t bother telling him that it’s going to be all right. Instead, she gives his shoulder a squeeze and respectfully ignores the tears gathering in his eyes.

A few hours later, they come out of hyperspace next to Home One, which looks a little worse for wear. Leia grimaces—the invasion of Hoth must have done more damage than she thought. They get permission to dock, and Luke pilots them into one of the bigger hangars.

Han is there to greet them when they exit. Normally, after a long absence, Leia would kiss him, but it doesn’t feel right. Instead, she lets Han pull her in with his hands on her hips to kiss her on the forehead. He withdraws more quickly than he normally does at the sight of Luke.

“Kid. C’mere.” 

Han tugs him into a hug, and for the first time since Dagobah, Luke’s shoulders finally drop.

“She told me to go,” Han tells the top of Luke’s head. “I was gonna try to get through to her, but then heard the breathing.”

He shudders. Leia can’t blame him. The memory of Vader’s breathing still sends a shiver down her spine, too.

“So you just left her there?” Luke snarls, yanking himself out of Han’s grip.

Han’s gaze swings to Leia’s, panicked.

“Luke!” she says sharply. “Would you prefer that he have more leverage?”

Luke visibly deflates. Leia grabs his hand and gives it a squeeze. Han grips his opposite shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says, blinking furiously.

They stay in their little huddle for a few more minutes until Chewbacca and the droids arrive from where they were probably doing maintenance on the Falcon. Chewie bodily lifts Luke off of the ground in a hug while Threepio expresses his condolences. For his part, Artoo pumps against Luke’s knees. He reaches down to pat his dome.

“It’s gonna work out, kid,” Han says.

Leia would have elbowed him in the stomach if Chewbacca hadn’t been in the way.

Threepio starts to speak, probably to tell Luke the exact odds of Aunt Beru emerging from this situation alive before Artoo rams into one of his shiny legs.

“It’s going to take planning to get her back,” Luke says. “But she knows things about the Alliance. She won’t want to reveal anything, but at a point, she won’t have—” 

His eyes go wide, just as Leia’s heart plunges directly into her toes as they come to the same conclusion.

“Sithspit,” Leia hisses.

It’s a curse her father only used when he was certain that they weren’t around any Imps. Leia thinks it might be a Jedi curse. It feels appropriate, at any rate.

“What?” Han blinks rapidly, looking back and forth from Luke to Leia in his panic. “What’s wrong?”

“Dagobah,” Luke says, his voice strained. “The Empire knows about Dagobah.”

* * *

The most annoying thing about being a ghost is that Obi-Wan can’t physically take Yoda by the shoulders and shake him, no matter how much he wants to.

“You had to have flown here,” he says for probably the sixth time in this argument.

“Mmm,” Yoda agrees, spooning his soup into his bowl. “Fly here, I did.”

He refuses to take the statement to its logical conclusion—that there must be a ship he could use to escape before the entire might of the Empire crashes down on the swamp.

“Master Yoda,” he begins again, but the old Jedi isn’t listening.

Obi-Wan is particularly used to this look. Over the course of the Clone Wars, he’d been subjected to it more times than he could count. Yoda is placing his trust in the will of the Force.

“You can’t die and leave them alone,” Obi-Wan insists.

Yoda chuckles. “Left them you did, Obi-Wan.”

Fair enough.

“Even more reason for you to stay!” Obi-Wan insists. “It’s not your time. It can’t be.”

Yoda is the last pillar of the old Order. When he is gone, it will fade alongside him.

“Up to you to decide, Obi-Wan, it is not.”

Yoda lifts a hand like he’s going to place it on Obi-Wan’s shoulder before remembering that he’s not corporeal.

“Please.”

Yoda shakes his head. “See you, he must not, Obi-Wan.”

He understands a dismissal when he hears one. Obi-Wan lowers his head, letting out a sigh.

“May the Force be with you, Master Yoda,” he says before allowing himself to fade away.

* * *

He hasn’t left Coruscant in quite some time. Ordinarily, he would only travel with a full cruiser, but he doesn’t need word of this getting out in the very unlikely event that something goes wrong.

Sidious watches as the ship—piloted only by his most talented Inquisitors—exits hyperspace. The little planet beneath them is utterly insignificant. It’s no surprise that the little troll was able to hide here as long as he has.

Vader had been eager to bring him the information. He’s likely attempting to demonstrate that he’s not as far gone as Sidious suspects he is. Still. Sidious doesn’t trust his judgement enough to send him to Dagobah. Sometimes, if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself.

They take a shuttle down to the planet’s surface. It’s a truly disgusting place, likely similar to the old Jedi’s disgusting homeworld. Why the Jedi had let a non-humanoid lead them, Sidious will never understand.

“Await my instruction,” he tells the Inquisitors before stepping outside.

He doesn’t anticipate any difficulties. Beating Yoda in one-on-one combat had been easy enough twenty years ago. And in the twenty years that have passed, Sidious has stayed sharp, while Yoda has lived  _ here. _

It’s not hard to find the old Jedi. The planet is heavy with the Dark. Finding the Light is child’s play.

He’s living in a hut. Sidious smiles. It’s utterly pathetic, and utterly fitting. Sidious ignites his saber and waits. It’s been quite some time. THe blade feels excellent humming in his hands.

It takes a few moments for Yoda to hobble outside. The past twenty years have not been kind to him. If he had seemed ancient before, he’s decrepit now.

“Alive, is she?” Yoda asks.

His lightsaber hangs at his side, unignited. Sidious wonders if it still works.

“You should be worried about yourself,” Sidious says with a smile, “Master Yoda.”

Yoda doesn’t rise to the bait. He merely looks Sidious up and down, unimpressed.

“Beru,” Yoda says, then repeats. “Alive, is she?”

Sidious shrugs. “For now. As long as she’s...useful.”

He lets the word trail away. Twenty years ago, he’d leveraged Anakin Skywalker’s wife against him. Now he will leverage a mother-figure against his children. It’s wonderful symmetry.

“Lost, you have,” Yoda says.

He ignites the saber. So it works after all.

“I see no loss,” Sidious replies with a smile. “All I see is the last remnant of a lost way.”

He lunges, swinging his lightsaber in a broad arc over his head. Yoda’s flashes up, lightning quick. They trade blows in a flurry. Sidious’ blood sings. Maybe he needs to leave Coruscant more often.

Their last duel had been peppered with conversation, verbal jabs just another tool in their arsenals. Sidious knows damn well that Yoda won’t respond to any sort of provocation, so he doesn't try.

Instead, he doubles the strength of his attack and is rewarded by managing to twist hard enough to knock the blade out of Yoda’s hand. Before Yoda can summon it back, Sidious strikes.

But the moment before his lightsaber connects, Yoda fades to nothing.

He roars so loud in frustration that the inquisitors can hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoda does not run from Dagobah, even though he knows the Empire must be coming, and allows himself to be killed.
> 
> yikes D:


	48. just another hutt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for what could be considered suicidal thoughts. see the end note for more information!

For reasons Beru can’t entirely comprehend, she hasn’t been put into a cell. Instead, she finds herself standing next to Vader on a platform overlooking the bridge of a Star Destroyer. Her best guess is that they think there’s a possibility that she’ll pull off another escape if left to her own devices. Beru finds that unlikely, but at least it means that she’s somewhere temperature-controlled. The first Star Destroyer cell had been freezing.

Of course, letting her on the bridge means that they have no intentions of letting her live—she’s seen too much. Beru had assumed that they were going to kill her before, but this feels certain. Final.

“Come,” Vader says suddenly.

Beru blinks—she’d been lost in thought staring out into space. As far as last views went, it hadn’t been half bad. She’d never dreamed that she’d ever see the stars up close like this.

He turns sharply and stalks off down the hallway. For a beat, Beru considers tearing in the other direction as quickly as she possibly can. But even if she did manage to get away from Vader—unlikely—she’d never manage to get off the Star Destroyer. So instead, she follows in his shadow.

It’s strange how quickly he moves, considering that he’s practically made of metal. Beru wonders if he quiets his footsteps with the Force. It seems like the sort of thing he could do.

Wherever it is they’re going, they’re going there quickly. Beru lengthens her stride to keep up with Vader’s considerable one without quite running. She doesn’t want to die red-faced and out of breath.

Finally, Vader pauses to key in a door code. Beru takes the opportunity to catch her breath. At least Owen will be waiting for her.

“Be silent,” Vader tells her.

Beru almost opens her mouth to tell him that she hasn’t said a word since they reached the shuttle to fly here, but that would belie her point, so she stays quiet. Vader makes a motion that Beru interprets as a direction, so she goes and stands in the place he indicated. Despite herself, her fingers play worriedly with a loose thread from her jacket. The Star Destroyer is considerably warmer than Echo Base, but she hasn’t taken it off, afraid that they’ll take even that small comfort from her.

A holo appears in front of them, far larger than life, and Beru’s breath catches in her throat. Even on Tatooine, they know the Emperor’s face—it’s on newsreels, propaganda posters, the like. Beru’s stomach sinks when those all-too-familiar eyes find her.

“Beru Lars,” he says.

Beru apparently doesn’t know what’s good for her, because she says, “Beru Whitesun Lars, actually. Once you’re widowed—”

She cuts herself off with a yelp as her kneecaps smash into the hard floor. Vader has shoved her with the Force, and the surprise jolt of pain has stolen her voice. Beru looks over at him accusingly and realizes with a jolt that Vader is kneeling, too. It presents a funny image; they’re almost the same height. From this angle, she can see that the eyepieces of his helmet are tinted red. Is everything that he sees a bloody shade?

“Spirited,” the Emperor says, as if describing an eopie he’s hoping to buy at market. 

Beru bristles, but she has the sense to stay quiet this time. The emperor turns to Vader, who doesn’t so much as flinch where he’s kneeling.

“You said Anakin Skywalker’s children would be with her, Lord Vader.”

Children. Beru’s heart stops. How could they possibly know about Leia? She tries not to allow the surprise to show on her face, but it clearly doesn’t work, because the emperor smiles at her. Beru turns her attention back to Vader. He shifts at the Emperor’s words, but minutely. Beru wonders if it even showed up on the holo.

“I was mistaken, my master.”

Bile rises in Beru’s throat at the hated word. It’s been difficult enough hearing Luke refer to Yoda as such, but he makes it clear each time that the title is one of respect, not subservience.

“You have served me faithfully for many years, Lord Vader.” If it’s possible, the Emperor’s eyes grow even colder. “You do not fail often. Yet when the Skywalker brats are concerned, I fear, your judgement is clouded.”

This time, Beru’s confusion and surprise parades openly across her face, and she doesn’t bother to hide it. Vader’s judgement certainly doesn’t seem all that clouded to her.

“I will not fail you, master.”

This time, Beru flinches at the word, drawing both men’s brief attention. She does her best not to shrink under it.

“You will not,” the Emperor says. “You will proceed directly to Imperial Center with our hostage.”

Hostage. They’re not going to execute her, then. Or, at least, not right away. But they’re going to use her, and somehow, that feels worse.

“Yes, master.”

“Make haste, Lord Vader. I want this little matter dealt with as quickly as possible.”

The holo vanishes. Beru all but springs to her feet, despite the protest of her knees. Vader takes a few more moments to rise. Is he struggling? Out of instinct, Beru almost reaches out to help him before remembering herself.

“Are you—” Beru very nearly cuts herself off before deciding that it would probably be better if Vader Force-choked her to death before he could use her to lure Luke and Leia to the capitol. “— _ his _ ?”

They both know perfectly well what she means. Vader rises to his full height before stepping closer to loom over Beru. She doesn’t draw back. Instead, she merely tips her head back to look him in the eyes—or, as close as she can manage, anyway.

“I am  _ mine _ ,” Vader snarls.

Shmi’s words. Beru can hear the anger even through the vocoder. If she pushes the right buttons, she thinks, she can get him to kill her. Dying to free others. If it was good enough for her parents, it’s good enough for her.

“That’s not how it looks to me.”

* * *

The last time Vader met Beru Whitesun Lars face-to-face, she’d compared him to Tatooine’s slaveholders. Vader had thought that that was the deepest cut she’d ever be able to inflict. But it appears that he was wrong.

She reminds him of Shmi Skywalker in a way, makes him think of a sandstorm childhood that he’s almost forgotten. She has Shmi’s sharp wit and the old, old eyes of someone who has seen far more than they’ll ever speak about.

Vader tries to imagine what her neck will look like blooming black and blue bruises, but all he can summon up is the way Shmi’s face had been twisted in pain the last time that he’d seen it.

“He is—”

What? A teacher? Sidious has never even shown him the magic he’d claimed could save Padmé Amidala from death. Someone Vader respects? That ship hit atmosphere a very long time ago. In charge? That will only confirm the woman’s observation.

“—an obstacle,” Vader finishes. “One that I will overcome.”

“What, with Luke and Leia?” she scoffs. “Not a chance.”

Vader tightens his fist. Beru Whitesun Lars’ breathing turns ragged, but doesn’t stop. She meets his gaze with a challenge in her eyes.

She’s goading him. Hoping that he’ll kill her and fail his mission to set a trap for Skywalker’s children. She’s cleverer than he gave her credit for, but he won’t allow her to win. He releases his grip, and her disappointment flares in the Force.

“You know what I think he is?” she says, arching an eyebrow, daring him to act. “I think he’s just another Hutt.”

Vader forces his hand to stay limp at his side.

“I think,” she says, her voice growing still louder, “that you took the freedom your mother gave you and threw it away.”

Rage sweeps over him like a sandstorm. By the time Vader regains control, Beru Whitesun Lars is pinned to the far wall of the room, triumph in her concussion-clouded eyes.

He releases her, and she falls to her knees.

“Come,” he says shortly, and strides out of the room without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: Beru goads Vader in the hopes that he'll kill her rather than use her as a hostage, though she is unsuccessful.
> 
> eeeee that was /such/ a fun chapter to write! the Beru and Vader interactions have been the best part of this fic :D
> 
> next up: back to Luke and Leia.


	49. hostage situation

“And you’re quite certain that she’s still alive?”

Leia is certain that, if not for what she’d witnessed during the Clone Wars, Mon Mothma would have found Jedi power difficult to believe. Leia can’t blame her. If not for the fact that she can lift pebbles with her mind, she probably would be a skeptic, too.

“I’d know if she were dead! We both felt it when—” Luke’s voice cracks, and he sinks back into his seat.

Leia picks up the story. “When General Yoda died, both Luke and I could feel it in the Force. There was a gap where he’d been.”

Leia believes the old Jedi died of old age, no matter what Luke says. If it had been a violent death, if the Emperor really had killed him, and knew that they’d been trained by the best, she’d know it.

Wouldn't she?

Mon Mothma nods. “But it’s my understanding that Jedi are far more attuned to each other than to the rest of us. So how would you know about Beru?”

Luke opens his mouth, probably to launch into an impassioned speech that will get him exactly nowhere with someone as calculating as Mon Mothma, but Leia holds up her hand. 

“The Emperor is an excellent tactician,” Leia says, crossing her legs and leaning across the table between them. “We both know that.”

When Leia was a child, her father had sat her down and worked through Palpatine’s rise to power with her. Using the remains of the Senate archives, they’d pieced together as much of his plan as they could. It had been a lesson in never underestimating the enemy, and it was one that Leia had learned well.

“He wants Luke and I dead, I assume—”

Luke cuts her off. “Or he wants us to end up like our—like Vader.’

Leia shoots him a grateful look. She still hasn’t informed the Alliance’s leadership about her and Luke’s parentage, and she has no intentions of doing so. Secrets like that have a way of getting out, and they don’t need the PR crisis.

“I doubt that he would be content if anyone else did the deed if he wants us killed. And if what he wants is a new pair of Vaders, he’ll need to deal with us directly. Either way, he needs us captured and alive. So far, nothing he’s tried has accomplished that.”

Mon Mothma nods. “You think this is a hostage situation.”

Luke’s knuckles whiten; his fingers are curled around the arms of his chair. 

“I’m assuming. But we have the advantage.”

It's a credit to Mon Mothma’s friendship with and respect for Leia’s father that she doesn’t actually roll her eyes at the idea that they have any sort of advantage over the Emperor, but it's a close thing. Leia can actually see her restraining the urge.

“How so?” she says diplomatically.

“He thinks he’s dealing with two Force-sensitives,” Leia explains. “Sure, we could give a whole platoon of Stormtroopers a run for their money, but we’re nothing compared to him. But we’re not just two Force-sensitives. We’re two Jedi. Master Yoda thought we were ready, and I do, too.”

She can see the gears turning in Mon Mothma’s head. Leia glances at Luke out of the corner of her eye. He’s more somber than she’s seen him since they landed on Tatooine two years ago.

“Ready for what, exactly, Leia?”

“Ready to kill him,” Leia says. “And, if we can manage it, Vader, too.”

* * *

Over the next two days, Leia doesn’t speak to Luke at all. In fact, she hasn’t even really seen him outside of the occasional accidental crossing of paths in the hallway. 

“Has he said anything to you?” she asks Han on the afternoon of the second day over a shared plate of bread and (sadly, not Deeranberry) jam.

Han answers through a mouthful of bread, ignoring her disapproving look. “Usually I can’t get the kid to stop yapping.”

Leia snorts—anyone who’s ever been stuck with Luke in deep space for any length of time can attest to that.

“I think I should go talk to him,” Leia decides. She glances at the plate. “Think you can take care of the rest of that?’

The size of Han’s next bite answers for her, so Leia goes looking for Luke. using the Force, it doesn't take her long to track him down, even though he’s in the engine room fiddling with some spare droid parts.

“Everything all right? Aunt Beru is the strongest—”

“—is that what you think this is about?” Luke asks, setting down the processor that he’d been examining.

Leia falters. She’d been more than ready to comfort him about Aunt Beru, she’s worried, too, after all.

“It’s not?”

Luke shakes his head and picks up the processor again. Leia reaches out to take his free hand, but he jerks out of her reach.

“Luke. What’s it about, then?”

For a moment, she thinks he’s not going to answer.

Then: “Do you really think you could kill him?”

Leia’s brain grinds to a halt. What kind of question is that?”

“The Emperor? I’ve been picturing it since I was a teenager.”

It had been a rather effective way of passing the time at those awful Imperial banquets when she was a senator. In between watching boring speeches and dancing with disgusting moffs to try to sneak information out of them, she’d pictured knocking his head clean off his shoulders or poisoning one of the goblets beside his plate, or letting the starving citizens of a neglected planet rip him to shreds like the refugees on Tatooine had done to Jabba the Hutt.

She’s quite lucky that she’d had the Force protecting her thoughts all that time, in hindsight.

“Not him.”

Ah. So that’s what this is about.

“Luke—”

“He was a slave. A tool. And I think, even now, he’s still a tool.”

Leia can’t stop a swell of anger. 

“That doesn’t mean what he’s done is excusable! He’s responsible for a genocide, Luke! Two, if you count Alderaan!”

And Leia does. Vader was the single person on the Death Star’s bridge that could have stopped Tarkin.

“I know that!”

Leia scoffs. It certainly doesn’t sound like he does.

“He cut off your hand!” she snarls. “He’s been doing Palpatine’s bidding since before we were born! He could bring the Empire to its knees if he wanted to!”

“I know that!” Luke repeats. “He’s all of those things. But he’s also—”

“Don’t!”

“—he’s also our father.”

The word lands, heavy, on the floor between them. Leia shakes her head.

“That doesn’t mean—”

“It means he was in love, once, doesn’t it?”

Leia rolls her eyes. “You don’t know that.”

As far as she’s concerned, it doesn’t matter what Padmé Amidala ever saw in Anakin Skywalker. She’d been wrong.

“She loved him,” Luke insists. “I asked Ben.”

“She made a mistake! Even if she did love him, she wouldn’t love him now!”

She cares about Han more than she ever has about another person, but she knows that if he committed even a tenth of the atrocities that Vader had committed in the first year of the Empire alone, she would kill him without hesitation.

Luke is the one to shake his head this time. “Ben was with her when she died. She knew everything that he’d done.”

Leia’s stomach revolts, and for a moment, she thinks that she’s going to throw up.

“She knew everything, and she still loved him. She still believed that there was something in him worth saving.”

Leia can tell from the glint in his eyes that there’s no way Luke will ever back down.

“You can talk to him,” she allows, the words sticking in her throat before tumbling out in a rush. “But if you can’t get him to come back—”

Luke nods. “I understand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this conversation was so interesting! both of them are right, which makes things so complicated D:


	50. i don't kneel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw again for something that could be considered suicidal thoughts. more info in end notes

During their descent into Imperial Center’s atmosphere, Beru warns the stormtrooper stationed in front of her that she gets spacesick. He doesn’t heed her warning, so when Beru is escorted back to Vader after an indeterminate amount of time, it’s by a stormtrooper with vomit splattered over his otherwise pristine armor. 

(She can’t help but be a little proud of herself.)

Unless she’s mistaken, Vader pauses for just a moment longer than usual to take in the sight before dismissing the trooper.

“The Emperor will not be lenient,” Vader warns when they’re alone.

Beru fights past her surprise that he’s trying to warn her. “Right. Because you’re so lenient.”

She traces her fingers over what she’s sure are impressive bruises on her throat before realizing what she’s doing and dropping her hand.

“Yes.”

Beru can’t quite tell if he didn’t catch the sarcasm or if he’s just refusing to acknowledge it.

“Jabba didn’t appreciate my lip, either,” Beru continues, just to fill the silence—well, other than Vader’s labored breathing—as they make their way towards a shuttle. “Not that it mattered, in the end. I got the last word.”

Trap baited, all she has to do is wait. Vader doesn’t disappoint.

“I received word of his demise.”

Yeah, she’s sure he did. Probably celebrated, even under that helmet of his. There are some parts of Tatooine that you just can’t wipe away.

“I can’t take all the credit. Luke and Leia played a big part in it.” 

For the first time in the conversation, she turns to Vader. He resolutely stares straight ahead. Maybe he doesn’t even have peripheral vision in that thing.

“Don’t you see? They’re chainbreakers, not holders. They’ll never agree to join you. When they arrive, your master is going to kill them, and you’re going to have to watch.”

The word ‘master’ tastes like the ashes of the homestead in her mouth. Good thing she already threw up.

“Luke felt Owen die, long before he knew anything about the Force,” Beru continues, refusing to look away. “He’ll feel me die, too, and he’ll stay away. Stay safe. They both will.”

But Vader says nothing at all.

* * *

Complete victory has never been closer, but Sidious is sour from that old troll’s escape. Yoda is very dead, yes, but Sidious didn’t get the pleasure of making him so. After twenty years, he certainly deserved that much.

“They have arrived, your Highness,” one of his attendants says.

“Send them in, and then leave us.”

The door swings open. Vader strides into the room, and half a step behind him is the woman who’d caused all of this fuss. She’s unimpressive—a medium height and nothing about her physique to suggest that she’s particularly dangerous. And, of course, she’s about as Force-sensitive as a rock.

And yet, she’s the key to everything.

“I don’t kneel.”

In the vastness of Sidious’ chambers, her voice echoes. She starts in surprise when the sound travels back to her.

“You do for me.”

Sidious lifts a hand and brings it down, bending the woman’s spine along with it. She visibly struggles to stay upright, her face growing steadily redder, but in the end, she collapses forward.

“You have done well, Lord Vader.”

Vader kneels beside her. The knee joint of his prosthetic creaks warningly. Sidious wonders idly to himself if it will give out.

“Thank you, my master.”

Indignation flashes over the woman’s face—indignation that Sidious can plainly see because she refused to bow her head.

What  _ is  _ it with the people of Tatooine?

He directs his attention to her. “How powerful are the Skywalker brats in the Force?” 

She shakes her head. “You’re going to have to rip it out of my mind.”

He could very well do that, and the way that she’s screwing up her face tells him that Beru Lars knows it. But Sidious knows Mon Mothama and knows that her relentless practicality won’t allow her to risk the Skywalkers unless she has non-mystical intelligence that tells her that Lars has been captured and isn’t dead.

He waves his hand. It has been a very long time since he’s overridden the entirety of the holonet like this, but it’s the best way to ensure that the rebellion sees.

The room is flooded with light, and the woman stiffens. Sidious lashes out with the Force, throwing her backwards with a hit to the face. She yelps as she skids a few feet before coming to a halt, crumpled over herself. She lifts her head to stare at him accusingly, her nose dripping blood.

Good. They need to see just how much worse it can get.

“Hello, Jedi,” Sidious says, staring directly into the recording droid that he’s summoned. “I am sure that by now, you have realized that we have captured one of your co-conspirators.”

Lars seems to realize that the cameras are on her as well, because she makes to get to her feet. Sidious freezes her in the place with the Force and presses on her windpipe for good measure.

“Beru Lars is a traitor,” he says, turning back to the camera. “In the early days of our great Empire, she chose to hide a Jedi, one of the very enemies that we had just defeated. The child she sheltered grew up to commit the greatest act of terrorism the galaxy has ever seen—the destruction of Project Stardust and the murder of over one million Imperial personel.”

Lars flinches, and Sidious has to conceal a smile. It must be so very limiting to care for the lives of even your enemies.

“Mrs. Lars is scheduled for execution in two rotations. If you do not wish for her to die alone, Jedi, I suggest that you hurry.”

* * *

Anders Stormchaser is wiping down the bar at the cantina where he works part time (both for the spare credits and for the information he can tease out of drunk patrons who don’t expect someone so young to be listening) when it happens.

The last time that the Emperor spoke directly to his subjects, Anders had been a vague consideration of his mother’s and nothing more. But he knows the face and voice of the man that rules the galaxy, so when Palpatine speaks, he stops dead mid-wipe.

The camera moves, and it feels like all of the air in the cantina has been swept out into the desert. Anders is lucky that he wasn’t holding one of the glasses, because he certainly would have dropped it.

It’s a little difficult to see her clearly—Tatooine hardly has the best holonet connection—but when Palpatine names the woman, it’s undeniable that Anders recognizes her. Beru Whitesun Lars’ lips are pulled back in a snarl, and her teeth are all but bared. Blood trickles from her nose, but she doesn’t move to wipe it away. Maybe she can’t.

For over a year now, the story of her defeat of Jabba the Hutt has been spreading around the chainbreaker circles. Anders has been responsible for a fair amount of the storytelling himself. 

“Cover for me, will you?” he tells Jes, the older bartender he usually turns to when he needs help.

“Anders, where—?”

But before she can finish the sentence, he’s vaulting over the counter and heading for the door.

They’ve got two days to lend their help to the rebels before Beru Whitesun Lars is no more, and Anders has absolutely no intentions of letting his hero die without knowing how much of a difference she’s made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Beru tries one last time to get Vader to kill her. again, it does not work.
> 
> pulling the end of this story together has just been so fun! did you think that we'd seen the last of Tatooine???


	51. revolution

Mon Mothma has always had a sneaking suspicion that Bail Organa hadn’t quite been telling the truth when he’d said that Leia’s parents were nameless victims of the Clone Wars. His friendship with Padmé Amidala, the woman’s not-so-secret pregnancy, and Leia’s striking resemblance to her had made her argument for her.

The resemblance has never been quite so striking.

Leia had given her all of a moment’s notice before storming into what passed as Mon’s office on Home One, Luke and one of the new recruits in tow.

“Tell her what you told Luke,” she says to the old woman. 

The woman blinks, staring at Mon like she’s afraid that she’s going to bite her head off.

“Why don’t you start with your name?” Mon suggests gently.

“Iyana, ma’am,” she says, ducking her head. “I’m one of the freed from Tatooine.”

Right. Mon had thought that she looked familiar.

“Go on.”

“I still have some contacts back home. When we have access to secure comms, we try to keep in touch.”

Letting the recruits keep in touch with family and friends was good for morale, but terrible for security. Mon had argued for many years that they should stop, and Bail had always argued back. With him dead, she hadn’t had the heart to go against his wishes.

“I got messages from nearly everyone today. It’s happening!”

Mon can’t stop herself from raising an eyebrow. “What, exactly, is happening?”

Luke butts in. “The chainbreakers on Tatooine have been planning a revolution for years. They just needed a catalyst to get it started.”

Mon thinks back to the report she’d gotten from Leia about the assassination of Jabba the Hutt, and it clicks.

“Whitesun Lars’ capture,” she says.

Leia nods. “And it’s not just Tatooine. Once other planets got word of what was happening, they followed suit. We just got intel a few minutes ago.”

She shoves a data pad into Mon’s hands. She scans it, the disbelief in her chest swelling with every word.

“But they’re rebelling against crime lords. Individual institutions of individual planets. Not the Empire.”

Luke shrugs. “Oppression is oppression. If they succeed, do you think they’ll be content to be oppressed by the Empire rather than the Hutts?”

It’s everything that they’ve been waiting for for the past twenty years. Mon doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“You know what our next move has to be,” Leia says.

She does. Tatooine—and all the planets that are following it to freedom—have begun to see Beru Whitesun Lars as a martyr. If the Alliance wants to take that momentum and run with it, they have to make a visible effort to rescue her.

Mon nods. “If you do this, you can’t be captured. You rescue Whitesun Lars, or you die in the attempt.”

The death of two Jedi in rescuing a parent figure will resonate. A successful rescue even more so. Their capture and execution—or, Force forbid, their capture and turn—will squash any hope the Alliance has of securing more allies.

“We understand,” Leia says.

“She’d do it for us,” Luke adds.

Mon doesn’t doubt that for a moment.

* * *

“You ready to go home, Commander?”

Ahsoka shakes off the old urge to tell Rex that the title hasn't’ been necessary in over two decades.

“We’ll have to be invited along, first,” she tells him as they step off the shuttle back on board Home One.

The truth is that she’s nowhere near ready to see Coruscant again, to see the mockery that Palpatine has made of the Temple. But she never will be, and war doesn’t give you the luxury of waiting. She's known that since she was fourteen years old.

“If he’s got his father’s head for strategy, he’ll say yes in a heartbeat.”

Ahsoka almost reminds him that Anakin’s strategy had primarily consisted of hurling Rex at problems with the Force, but she doesn’t have the time. They round a corner and come face-to-face with Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, a Wookiee—oh, no  _ way _ is that Chewbacca—a human Ahsoka doesn’t recognize, and two painfully-familiar droids.

Ahsoka knows from long experience that Threepio won’t recognize her, so she turns her attention to the astromech.

“Hey, Artoo.”

The droid whistles cheerfully, first at Ahsoka, and then at Rex.

“You know Artoo?” Luke asks.

“He was our father’s droid,” Leia says. “He remembers his apprentice. Hello, Fulcrum.”

Ahsoka schools her expression into something neutral. In hindsight, it’s obvious. Leia is the spitting image of Senator Amidala. Of course, the last time Ahsoka had seen her, Leia had been about a foot shorter.

“Our—” Rex starts, but Ahsoka elbows him, hard.

“It’s been a long time. I’m sorry about your parents.”

The words have a double meaning, and Ahsoka can see from the relief in Leia’s eyes that she’s picked up on it.

“Thank you.”

A brief, awkward silence descends before Ahsoka breaks it.

“I’m Ahsoka Tano. Fulcrum. This is Rex. We fought together in the Clone Wars, and we spent plenty of time on Coruscant. If you’ll have us, we’ll come with you.”

The only human that Ahsoka has no name for narrows his eyes at Rex.

“You look familiar.”

“I get that a lot.”

Only Leia has to bite down on her lip to keep from laughing.

“We’d love to have your help,” Luke says. “You know Coruscant?”

Ahsoka’s heart hurts. “Very well. I was raised there, in the Jedi temple.”

He doesn't know, and she can’t bring herself to be the one to tell him.

“Palpatine took it over after the massacre,” Leia says gently. “It’s his palace now.”

Ahsoka can feel Luke’s full-body shudder in the Force. She’d felt the same when she’d learned what he’d done the first time.

“I’m willing to bet that he hasn’t discovered all of its secrets, though,” Ahsoka says with a grim smile.

Spending her childhood wandering its hallways and playing with the other younglings had taught her the ins and outs of the place. She doesn’t think that Sidious has given as careful consideration to his palace beyond the throne room.

“The odds of successfully breaking in—” Threepio begins.

“Never tell me the odds,” Ahsoka says, at the same time that the human says precisely the same thing.

She smiles. “I like you” Then, she turns back to the rest of the group. “Give Rex and I some time to pull some forces together. Rex?”

He salutes—Ahsoka does her best not to roll her eyes—before heading back into the main hangar to secure them some ships.

“Luke, can I have a moment?”

He nods, so Ahsoka takes him by the elbow and steers him away from the others.

“What’s your plan for Vader?” she asks.

Luke lets out a breath. “Leia doesn’t agree with me, but I can feel something in him. A goodness that I—am I crazy?”

Ahsoka thinks of the heat of Malachor, the pain of seeing one exposed golden eye that should have been blue. “I’ve faced him, and I couldn’t reach him.”

Luke’s face falls, so Ahsoka continues.

“But I know how much he loved your mother. If you can remind him of that—” She sighs. “It’s a long shot, Luke. But I think you have to try.”

He nods resolutely, and Ahsoka pushes away the sinking feeling that she’s just resigned him to death. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted a Rex cameo a long time ago, but it never quite felt right. but here he is!! I am so excited to move into this next sequence :D
> 
> also happy one year to this fic! I missed that last week. whether you've been here from the beginning or you're just joining me for the first time today, thank you so much for the wonderful support that this fic has gotten <3


	52. not about forgiveness

“What do you  _ mean _ , ‘pirate-organized death match’?” Han demands.

The very little that Han has been able to glean about Chewie’s past has, historically, been pretty strange. Still, saying that he knows one of the few Jedi survivors because they met when she was a teenager after being kidnapped is one of Chewie’s wilder claims.

Whatever Chewie was going to say about it is lost as they enter the hangar. As much as it pains Han, taking the Falcon to Imperial Center is a pretty bad idea, so they’re taking a far more nondescript (Leia’s word for ‘boring’) ship instead.

The Jedi lady stops the two of them in their tracks before they get within earshot of Luke and Leia.

“I wanted to make sure that the two of you knew the risk you’re taking here.”

Chewie roars, and Ahsoka’s face softens.

“Yeah, I remember.”

They can’t die on this mission, if only because Han desperately needs to hear this story in full.

“Wait, you mean waltzing into the heart of the Empire when they’ve put a—dare I say—impressive bounty on my head is dangerous?”

Ahsoka raises her eyebrows—or, lack of eyebrows, really—“I’m not sure I’d call it impressive.”

“We can’t all be Jedi, sister.”

She rolls her eyes, but steps aside to let them pass.

Han gets it, and he sort of appreciates her attempt to warn them. But he threw his lot in with those crazy kids a long time ago, and he’s not backing down now.

“Ready for this?” he asks.

Luke nods, but Leia only looks skyward, as if asking the universe how she fell in love with such an idiot. (It beats all nine Corellian hells out of Han.)

“No odds, okay?” he tells Threepio.

How the droid manages to look distinctly ruffled when his face can’t even move is beyond Han, but Threepio manages it anyway.

They board the little ship. There’s enough room for everybody to sleep, provided that ‘everybody’ doesn’t include Chewbacca, but there’s not room for much else besides navigating.

“We’ll take first shift,” Ahsoka says, directing that familiar-looking friend of hers to sit beside her at the controls.

That’s gonna bug Han. He really does look like somebody he knows.

Chewie seems to realize that he’s not going to fit in one of the bunks, so he takes one of the seats, too. Apart from the droids, the rest of them file into the bunks as the ship hums to life beneath them.

Han is used to sleeping in a variety of weird and stressful situations, so he drops right off. If this is going to be his last shut-eye, it’s going to be good, thanks. He wakes a few minutes—hours?—later to an elbow in his stomach.

“Ow!” he hisses on instinct.

“Sorry.”

It’s the quietest he thinks he’s heard Leia since they talked about Alderaan years ago. He shifts over on his side so there’s more room for her to squeeze on to his cot. A few bunks away, Luke snores, but doesn’t wake. The kid could sleep through anything—probably due to growing up on a planet where sandstorms happen on the regular.

“You good?” Han whispers.

Leia tucks her head under his chin in response. Okay, not good, then. Han can’t blame her.

“It’s Vader. Isn’t it?”

A nod that Han feels more than sees. He maneuvers to loop an arm over her shoulders.

“Luke thinks there’s good in him.”

Han finds that a little difficult to believe. The guy practically kicks lothcats for a living. But then, Luke saw the best in a conman smuggler, didn’t he?

“And you don’t?”

Leia sighs, louder than any of her words so far.

“I don’t know how you forgive what he’s done. What he’s  _ allowed _ ,” Leia says, and Han knows she’s thinking of her home world.

“Maybe it’s not about forgiveness,” Han says after a moment. “Maybe it’s just about letting someone choose to be good, even after they’ve chosen not to be.”

Some of the tension in Leia’s shoulders melts away. Han presses a kiss to the crown of her head.

“Who let you get so wise?” she says through a yawn.

Han grins. “Has to happen sometimes.”

This time, they both drop off to sleep.

* * *

Ahsoka struggles to keep her doubts at bay as they start to descend into Coruscant's atmosphere. The city’s rebels have a small area of airspace locked-down, at least for the time being, so getting on-world isn’t as big of a problem as she’d feared.

Of course, they still have to sneak through the city, and she hasn’t exactly chosen the most inconspicuous group. Besides her and Chewbacca, there’s a handful of clones on the next transport.

“You’ll stay here,” Ahsoka instructs Threepio and Artoo. “The moment you see any of us, you start the ship, got it?”

Artoo chirps in agreement. At least someone around here is competent.

“We’ll be back. Come on.”

Their little group meets up with the strike team out on the landing platform. Ahsoka watches the awe on Luke’s face as he marvels at the hustle and bustle of the city around them and wonders if Anakin had looked like that all those years ago.

She misses Obi-Wan with a sudden fierceness that takes her by surprise.

“All right. Squadron, you’re with me. We’re making a big entrance and drawing attention to the west wing of the—” The word sticks, but Ahsoka forces it out anyway—“palace. Solo, Chewbacca, you’re going to be circling the palace in a speeder, making sure that there’s another distraction if we need one.”

Solo speaks up. “Where are we supposed to get the speeder?”

Ahsoka shrugs. “Make it work.”

Solo looks entirely too excited by that. If they both survive this, Ahsoka would love to go on a less high-stakes mission with him.

“Luke and Leia will be entering here.” 

She calls up an old map of the temple for them to see.

“As long as Palpatine hasn’t altered anything, there should be a hidden entrance and passageway. It was meant to be a way out of the temple in case of attack.”

The group, if possible, goes even quieter. Ahsoka recovers quickest.

“Any more questions?”

Silence.

She turns to Luke and Leia. “May the Force be with you.”

* * *

Leia has spent half of her life in cities, so it’s slightly disconcerting to have to reach out and prevent Luke from walking directly into traffic. When this is all over, she’s going to show him all of her favorite places.

“Do you think this is going to work” he asks as they walk right past a projection of their own faces on a nearby building.

“We’re getting in,” Leia says.

Now, getting out is the hard part.

Luke glances sideways at her, past the hoods that they’ve both thrown over their heads as terrible half-disguises. Leia suspects that they would have already been apprehended if it weren't for the Force.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Leia thinks again about what it would have been like to grow up with Luke. Both of them running wild through the dunes on Tatooine or the throne room on Alderaan. Tricking Owen and Beru or Bail and Breha, teasing each other.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” she says with a smile.

And it’s true. Despite the fear and dread thrumming through her veins, Leia knows with the certainty that she’s come to realize is the Force at work that this is what was meant to happen all along.

They’re going to free the galaxy. Leia knows it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so unbelievably excited to get on with these last few chapters! y'all have been absolutely wonderful :D

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, the whole of my Star Wars knowledge comes from playing Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for over a hundred hours as a kid.
> 
> This 'verse is super self-indulgent and also my first foray into Star Wars fic, so hi, I guess :D


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